Even with two 15-minute breaks and a half hour lunch, that’s still nine hours of standing in front of the Walgreens on Belmont Avenue and Broadway Street in frosty December weather. She expected to be picked up to return to the offices, signature red bucket in tow, around 8 p.m. On the evening I spoke to her, she was on the seventh hour of a day that began at 10 a.m., when she arrived at the Salvation Army offices on Chicago’s West Side to get her location assignment and clamber into the bus that drops bell ringers off around the city. This is Tominique’s first year as a bell ringer, and she admits it’s more stressful than she expected. But the temporary employment means long hours and tough quotas for the workers as they ask harried Chicagoans to spare a few dollars - without earning a living wage themselves. A number of them had been homeless in the past or otherwise in need of the Salvation Army’s help, and they said that bell ringing gives them the chance to return the favor. (But if volunteers become available, they will pre-empt paid employees for the position.)įor many of the 17 paid bell ringers I spoke with, the job opportunity comes as a welcome chance to bring in extra money over the holidays.
Chicago’s Metropolitan Division no longer acts under the assumption that it will have a set number of volunteers, says Thompson - rather, just like a retail employer anticipating a seasonal rush, it hires a flood of minimum-wage workers for the holiday season. As it has grown, however, it offers some bell ringers a minimum wage in return for standing in the freezing weather.
Since the Salvation Army first began collecting donations in kettles in the late 1800s, the organization has relied on volunteers to do the bulk of its bell ringing. That’s a lot of pressure, especially in shortened holiday seasons like this one. In some locations, Thompson says, kettle campaigns have supplemented up to 40 percent of the next year’s programming. Salvation Army depends on that money for its charity work, which includes youth tutoring, residences for low-income adults, meals for the needy elderly and prayer meetings. 4 million last year during the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. But there’s one group of people who continue to stand outside, braving biting winds and bone-chilling temperatures to ring bells asking for donations: the roughly 2, 000 Salvation Army “bell ringers.”Īccording to Major Greg Thompson, general secretary for the Salvation Army Metropolitan Division, Chicago’s “red kettle campaign” brought in $ 2. When the weather dips below freezing in Chicago, most of the city’s residents do their level best to stay indoors as much as possible.
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