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November 18, 2004
Target and the Salvation Army
If you have not heard, Target is not letting Salvation Army bell ringers collect donations in front of its stores this year (see hugh hewitt for more details). I worked for the Salvation Army during the summer of 1998 while I was in college. I was at a mission in the western part of Philadelphia and they gave me a wide variety of tasks. The two men in charge of the mission were both former drug abusers and one was a former gang member who had both turned their lives around through the Salvation Army and were now dedicated to helping people in similar situations.
Most of my activities involved supervising kids at the summer program, but they also included doing door to door mission work where we asked people in the neighborhood how the Salvation Army could help more and talked to them about Jesus. My fellow intern and I are both white and when we walked around the neighborhood people knew we were from the Salvation Army because Salvation Army people were the only white people who ever walked around the neighborhood like that. The Salvation Army also had "Body and Soul" meetings where there would be testimonies and food given out. I do not think I have ever worked with another agency that did as good of a job helping people with both their physical needs and their spiritual needs.
What Target has done is stupid, but I do not think intentionally bad. I suspect they were tired of people asking to solicit and they ended up throwing out the one organization they should have made an exception for. Think about the name "Salvation Army" for a minute. If no Salvation Army had ever existed and today someone came up with a name like that for a Christian group, people would freak out. But the Salvation Army is one of the most universally respected Christian organizations in the country because everyone knows it does such a good job taking care of people in need. Hopefully Target will change its mind before the Christmas shopping begins or else a lot of people in need will be forced to go without. That should be worth the annoyances of the old policy.
Posted by Pete at November 18, 2004 09:12 AM
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