They were a bit short of their goal, but local Salvation Army volunteers are still happy with the final totals from their recently concluded Christmas kettle campaign.
"We just have a little US money to exchange, but the final number is going to be about $351,000," said Capt. Dave Macpherson, longtime New Westminster Citadel head who's off to work in the Salvation Army's Burnaby divisional headquarters. "We're a bit down from last year and our target, but we're really happy with how much we did raise. People gave the best they could and we're very happy with the response from the community."
Macpherson, who helps coordinate 50 kettle locations in the Royal City and the Tri-Cities, had told The Record previously that the organization's original goal of $400,000 was scaled back to $365,000 and despite a good final weekend, they finished slightly behind the $358,000 they raised in 2011.
"We're definitely not complaining," he said. "I know that on the final weekend, we raised $52,000 in the last three days, which shows just how generous people were even as everybody's going through tough times."
Macpherson said the kettle campaign is the organization's largest fundraiser each year and the proceeds fund their programs for the year ahead.
"We couldn't run what we do without the money from the kettles," said Macpherson. "We thank everybody who gave and helped us raise this amount of money."
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