Doug Wimer of East Liverpool volunteers as a bell ringer outside Walmart for the Salvation Army’s Red Kettle Campaign. The kettles are equipped with a device that allows for donations to be made with a credit card. (Submitted photo)

EAST LIVERPOOL — The Salvation Army Red Kettle has kicked off for the holiday season with a goal of raising $35,000.

To make donating easier this year, the Salvation Army has added the ability to donate at the kettles with credit or credit debit card.

“A lot of times when people want to donate at the kettles, they are like ‘oh I want to do it but I don’t have cash,'” said EL Salvation Army Major Stephanie Larrick. “This year we have this new device attached to the kettles called a tip tap device.”

According to Larrick if someone wants to donate, they can just tap their card against the device for $5, $10 or $20 donation and it works as fast as if dropping a $5 bill in the kettle.

The device may not be available during rainy weather due to electronics.

Larrick said it will be exciting to see if funds come in through the device.

The Red Kettle Campaign started Nov. 16 and will run through Dec. 24. On Saturday members of the Masons were ringing kettles bells. They were also set at the hospital near the bridge and Walmart.

Kettles will be out daily Monday through Saturday.

All the funds donated stay local and are used to help with utilities, purchase food for the food boxes and keep demands running at the organization.

The Salvation Army has seen increases in the number of people they help this year. In October 2023, there were 273 households come through the pantry. This October there were 331 families. The number of children registered for gifts through the Angel Tree jumped from 321 last year to 424 this year.

According to Larrick, not meeting the goals means less and less start going into food bags and will put limits on who the organization is able to help. “We love having full bags and we love having full boxes at Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Larrick said. “Less funds means we do a little less. We do what we can. It’s hard telling people no.”

kgarabrandt@mojonews.com