Lancaster and Fairfield County's Salvation Army is planning to kick off its yearly campaign this week with a special breakfast.
The ‘red kettle campaign’, as the yearly collection drive is known, dates back to 1891, when Joseph McFee, a captain in the Salvation Army, was disturbed to see how many people were going hungry. He determined that he would give 1,000 of the poorest people in the city free Christmas dinner, but he had to determine how to raise the money he needed to do so.
McFee had been a sailor, and he remembered that in Liverpool there was an iron kettle called ‘Simpson's Pot’ where pedestrians threw spare change to help the less fortunate. McFee decided he would give the same system a try in San Francisco, and he put a pot near the Oakland Ferry landing, and labeled it ‘Keep the Pot Boiling’. He raised enough money to feed the 1,000 people he'd hoped to, and by 1897, the Salvation Army was serving 150,000 Christmas dinners nationwide.
This year’s event will take place tomorrow, November 15, at the Lancaster Country Club at 3100 Country Club Road SW, with the meal at 7:30 am. A program featuring former news anchor Cabot Rea as the speaker, and music provided by the Berne Union High School Choir, starts at 8:00 am. Tickets, which go to benefit the Salvation Army, are $15.
Events like these can benefit when organizers display festive Banners to add to the fun.
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