Morning Edition; Salvation Army

It's morning edition on KRPS. The pandemic has changed almost everything this year, but one thing that hasn't changed, the Salvation Army of Newton and Jasper counties working to meet the needs of area residents and Lieutenant Marty Norris of the Salvation Army in Southwest Missouri joins us this morning. Thank you for some of your time this morning. Great pleasure to be here. And I'm gonna start by asking a very obvious question. What is the best way somebody listening to this interview can help the Salvation Army of Jasper, Newton counties? So are you still taking non-perishable food items and can I still drop off items at your store in downtown Joplin? What's the best way to help right now? Well, the best way to help right now will take any type of food donation or gift certificate or food donation or toys and just in general. They can drop them off at our H Street location, which is 320 East H Street. That's our main office. And sometimes they go to the thrift store, but it's just better to go there first. Okay, and that's all donations.

Anything they want to donate to take it to that office. If it's more a Christmas Relate. But we also take another thrift store. And we also take thrift store donations as well. We're a need of furniture and good working appliances and stuff like that. So anything is helpful to help our needs. Okay, and I've seen your commercials on TV for bell ringers. Are you guys still in need of bell ringers? Of course, we're all familiar here in that bell. And I go to the Walmart right around the corner from my house here and I see them outside. Are you guys still looking for to fill that need? Oh, we are definitely in need of the field of volunteer, especially on the volunteer range. Our slower days are Tuesday through Thursday. And we can really get people out those days. That would be great. Because every little bit of help or ringing can help us reach our goal for this year. And if somebody that isn't here, here's this interview and is interested in bell ringing, where can they go to get more information on that? They can either call our eight street office

and this has one of our employees there or how to do that. Or they can go to register to ring.com. That's the easiest way to go and look, see what sites are available. You can put your name in there and a full number and it'll even give you a reminder of when you requested the time to ring. Oh, really? So it's like an application process that it's like an appointment process also that keeps track of it for you. Yes. It'll help you remember it up. It's okay, I volunteer for this day. So it'll send you a reminder a day or two before that you have signed up for a shift. And here's your reminder of what you will need and what we will provide for you. How has there been a slowdown in bell ringers? Because people don't want to interact with the public so much this season? We have seen a very large client in bell ringers for this year. So it truly has impacted this. Plus we have fewer kettles out than what we normally would have. So we are, it's kind of hit us quite a bit and both categories of locations and personnel.

Yeah, that's true. Along with people just caring less cash in general. Cash and coin, I find myself caring less and less of it. So people that do want to donate, they'd see the bell ringer and they still want to donate though, can they do that online? And where's the best place for that? You can also go to restaurant.com. There's also a spot on there too. You can donate online or you can go to any kettle and up on the sign, we have a Google Pay or a UR code that you can scan with your phone and make a payment that way as well. And if you do not have a Google app or that you are a app on your phone, you could still scan the UR code and fill it out automatically with your credit card. Is there something out there that you don't think gets advertised enough or is promoted enough that you want people to know this holiday season? This is a new thing we're trying this year. It's called a registry for good. It's set up through the Walmart.

You just go into the get registry section and pull up the registry for good for the submission. And we have a list of toys that are on there. All I got to do is just go shopping and pick what they would like to buy for. And sell out the wherever paperwork they need for their in and it's automatically shipped to us. All right, Lieutenant Marty Norris with the Salvation Army of Newton and Jasper Counties. Thank you so much for your time this morning. Oh, thank you very much. It's greatly appreciate it.