GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) — The holidays are over, but the Salvation Army’s Red Kettle Campaign technically isn’t.
“Overall we’ve reached 82% of our Christmas Campaign goal which was set at 1.335 million this year,” Nicole Hanley with the Green Bay Area Salvation Army told WTAQ.
Donations are still coming in for the campaign, which doesn’t actually end until January 31st–even though bell ringers have gone home.
“Kettles were down a little bit this year. Bell ringers were down this year,” Hanley told WTAQ. “We think maybe a late Thanksgiving had something to do with that. It was a shorter Christmas season.”
People are carrying less cash with them, too. New technology was implemented on some kettles this year to help deal with that trend.
“We did actually provide a new option this season called ‘Kettle Pay’,” said Hanley. There were little seasons on the kettles where people could tap their phone if they had Apple or Google Pay set up, and they could use that.”
Hanley says they’ll be evaluating whether or not those were effective in driving donations.
