Salvation Army: Partners in Caring

I just received my annual "thanks" for supporting the Salvation Army.

Your compassionate support is providing struggling families with food, clothing, shelter and much-needed hope. Thank you!

You are having a tremendous impact in our community! Through your concern and generous support of The Salvation Army, you are reaching out to our neighbors in greatest need.

Thanks to you, hungry children are being fed. Families are finding safe shelter. And people in crisis are being helped back on their feet.

This past year you have helped us reach out with:

• Food services for the hungry

• Nights of safe shelter

• Disaster Emergency help for families in need

• Clothing and furniture distributions for the less fortunate

• Counseling and spiritual direction for lost souls.

And so much more, more than we can count. Thank you so much!

Of course, no thanks is necessary.  I have witnessed first hand the difference this fine organization makes, and have  testimony in abundance from clients and friends recounting the beneficial efforts of the Army of volunteers.

It strikes me though, that I never see slickly produced commercials by the Salvation Army tugging at my heart-strings, asking me to adopt a child, a pet, a family, or a community.  I can recall no television or radio advertisement with the haunting voice of a popular singer rising and falling as a voice-over urges me to donate and "donate now."

I cannot recall the Salavation Army paying to sponsor a sports event,  professional sports franchise, concert, or music festival as have so many other charities.  Yet the Army continues to wage war against poverty, hunger, homelessness, substance addiction, and to fill physical, and spiritual needs.

My wife and I have numbered as amazing clients three who owe their very lives to the Salvation Army.  One family recounted to us how, following WWII, their entire family and community in Eastern Europe were dispossessed of home, property, and wealth- for being German.  Despite that these families had no ties or connection to Germany for five generations before the war, Germanic names were despised after the war. The fact that the patriarch of the family had died fighting Nazi Germany alongside the rest of the free world saved these families for a time, but the service was soon forgotten and they were made refugees. But, there were no aid programs, and traditional charities refused to help.  The Salvation Army, however, came to the rescue.  The family recounted an eerie and ironic journey by train during which Jewish refugees and Christian refugees shared the similarities of their plight as they were rescued from Eastern Europe, some to ultimately reside in Akron, Ohio.

The family serves the Army to this day.

A Dutch family described a. similar situation in a more recent time.  Political upheaval in Central America stranded their father.  The company for whom he worked maintained kidnapping insurance, and often retained experts to rescue kidnapped employees, but because their father was not kidnapped, they simply abandoned him.  Working through local churches in the region, the Salvation Army was able to rescue those otherwise trapped and abandoned.

The Salvation Army does amazing work.   

You can help.  Consider a donation here.