Communities ringing Thursday for red-kettle collections
<p>Councilman Mike Shepherd serves as a volunteer for the City of Columbia Falls in the Second Annual City "Bell Ringing" Competition on Thursday, December 18, at Smiths Grocery in Columbia Falls. Two volunteers were scheduled to come in hourly during the competition. According to a press release last year the six contestants; City of Columbia Falls, Evergreen Chamber of Commerce, Bigfork Chamber of Commerce, City of Whitefish, City of Kalispell, and Lakeside Chamber of Commerce, raised nearly $7,000. (Brenda Ahearn/Daily Inter Lake)</p>
Columbia Falls is aiming for a fourth consecutive win in the annual Salvation Army City and Chamber of Commerce Kettle Competition that gets underway Thursday in the Flathead Valley.
The Columbia Falls Chamber of Commerce and city employees have teamed up to keep the city in the top slot of raising money for the Salvation Army.
“It is a close competition — neck-and-neck,” said Lt. Kabrina “KB” Hall, assistant corps officer for the Salvation Army. “There are many around the area who have competitive spirits so we think this is going to be a great competition.”
Last year Columbia Falls retained the traveling trophy by raising $1,780.50, with a $500 matching contribution from Smith’s grocery. Evergreen was in second place with $1,534.70.
The friendly competition is a popular holiday season event. In the past the cities of Kalispell, Whitefish and Columbia Falls, plus Chamber of Commerce organizations in Evergreen, Bigfork and Lakeside, have all rung bells for the red-kettle campaign at area retail businesses to see which community can raise the most money for the charity.
“Evergreen is the biggest little city in the tri-city area and we are going to win,” Peggy Lundin of Evergreen declared.
Erin Duval added, “We try and ring our little hearts out here in Lakeside.”
Kalispell won’t be in the competition this year because of a scheduling conflict, Hall said. But all of the other communities are ringing away Thursday.
Bigfork ringers are set up at Harvest Foods from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. In Columbia Falls the crew is ringing at Smith’s grocery from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Lakeside folks are at Tamarack Brewing Co. from noon to 8 p.m. Whitefish stages its red-kettle effort from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in front of Super 1 Foods and Evergreen also is ringing at the Super 1 Foods in that community from 9:45 a.m. to 5:45 p.m.
The Salvation Army uses the kettle collections to provide a variety of services to those who need food, clothing and emergency assistance. Its mission is to meet human needs without discrimination.
Collections this year are “actually pretty OK,” Hall said. “Some days it goes really well and other days are OK. We hope this ring-off will build momentum so we can end the season with a bang.”
Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.