We Americans like to do our part – from recycling to volunteering, we try to pitch in and help out in our communities. National Salvation Army week (the week of May 10th) is a perfect opportunity to focus your efforts on making a difference right here in Central Indiana. 

During his presidency, Dwight D. Eisenhower stated, “Among Americans, The Salvation Army has long been a symbol of wholehearted dedication to the cause of brotherhood. In time of war, the men and women of this organization have brought to those serving their country far from home, friendliness and warm concern.  In the quieter days of peace, their work has been a constant reminder to us all that each of us is neighbor and kin to all Americans, giving freely of themselves, the men and women of The Salvation Army have won the respect of all.”

The week of November 18 – December 4, 1954 was declared by the United Stated Congress and proclaimed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to be the first National Salvation Army Week.  Today, the dates have changed, but the work of The Salvation Army that was recognized has not  – to serve those in need without discrimination.

So, in celebration of this special week in May, we’ve come up with some tangible ways to get your employees involved in “doing the most good.”

Casual/Denim Day – Is your office on the professional attire end of the spectrum? What about a day that you give your employees the opportunity to “buy” a casual day for a good cause? Rolls Royce, Delta and Ingersoll Rand have all participated and found it to be a big hit. How about asking for $5 to wear jeans or even business casual? We can provide stickers (like “I Voted” stickers) that employees can wear to tell why they’re casual for the cause – helping out their neighbors in need.

Paper Kettles – Much like the Riley wagons or the Children’s Miracle Network hot air balloons, The Salvation Army has paper red kettles that your business can offer to customers/clients for a $1 donation. What a great way to show the community where your values lie – in helping women fleeing domestic violence, feeding the hungry, providing shelter for the homeless and caring for seniors. Your place of business can proudly display the “kettles” throughout National Salvation Army week.

Dine to Donate – Are you a restauranteur? We’re looking for eateries willing to partner with us for a day during this week in May. Our event at Noodles & Company was a big hit and we’d love to offer opportunities for others to eat for a good cause. All you have to do is be willing to host a day where we get a portion of sales when people mention The Salvation Army. Easy, peasey! Great exposure for you, a simple fundraiser for our programs. It’s a win/win!

Got ideas? We have lots of ideas how we can promote our partnership with you, and we’d love to hear how your business can do something unique to join us during this national celebration.

Major Welch and Jeff Stanger accept donation from Mike Jones and Ricker's CEO Jay Ricker

It takes a special kind of CEO to be willing to sacrifice a little pride while challenging his employees to do something good for their neighbors. Jay Ricker is that kind of CEO.

The Salvation Army has been fortunate to partner with Jay Ricker (CEO Ricker Oil, am/pm convenience stores) and his am/pm stores at BP stations across Central Indiana. Leading up to red kettle season, Ricker inspires his employees to talk up donations for the kettles in hopes to become the location to collect the most cash and coins for their neighbors in need. What’s the incentive? How about having your CEO visit your location to pass out free hotdogs to your customers….dressed as a clown!

We joined the celebration at the 52nd and Keystone BP store this afternoon to witness Ricker making good on his promise. Ricker’s team then presented Major Keith Welch and our Development Director, Jeff Stanger with a check for over $13,000 - the amount collected in kettles during the Christmas season and a company matching donation. The Salvation Army will use those funds to continue to offer food, shelter and support services for those in need across Central Indiana.

Thanks to Jay Ricker, Mike Jones and the team at Ricker’s Oil, am/pm, and the participating BP locations as well as all of the generous Hoosiers who donated during the Christmas season!

If your business is interested in partnering with The Salvation Army to continue “Doing the Most Good” right here in our community, contact Kristen Grills at 224-1019 or kristen_grills@usc.salvationarmy.org.

 If you’re in downtown Indy this afternoon, you’ll notice it sounds a lot more like Christmas. Today is Celebrity Bell Ringing Day in front of Emmis studios on Monument Circle. Some of our more recognizable friends are giving an hour or more of their time today to ring bells and collect some of the first donations of the season.

So far today, we’ve had the priviledge of ringing with some of the lovely Colts cheerleaders, WISH TV-8 personalities, our WIBC Radiothon Chair (and Pacers’ own) Quinn Buckner, Darth Vadar, Boomer, Trucky and Big-E-Foot. We’ve also had some fun previewing tomorrow’s Turkey Bowling event with GFS Marketplace.

Speaking of turkey bowling, if you’re out and about on the west side tomorrow, stop by the GFS Marketplace on Rockville Road for their Thanksgiving sampling day and Turkey Bowling. We’ll be there and we hope you’ll join us in packing the pantries at our community centers.

WISH TV-8 anchorman, Eric Halvorson kicked off his fifth season as Chair at our Tree of Lights ceremony this morning. Community leaders and volunteers gathered to show support in raising this year’s campaign goal of $3 million – the largest goal ever set by The Salvation Army in Central Indiana. That’s an ambitious goal in a tough economic climate, but with requests for assistance soaring, we will need every last dollar to continue to provide food, shelter, utility and holiday assistance to our neighbors in need.

Walmart has generously agreed to once again serve as our Tree of Lights tree sponsor. Also joining us at this morning’s kick-off event was our 15th annual WIBC Radiothon team of Radiothon Chair and Pacers’ VP of Communications, Quinn Buckner and Terri Stacy and Joe Staysniak of the WIBC Morning Show. And special music was provided by the St. Richard’s singers and The Salvation Army Brass Ensemble. Our Divisional Commanders Majors Richard and Vicki Amick encouraged each of us to help our communities in need – if just one in ten people in Marion County could donate just $30 each, we’d collect that $3 million by Christmas! Now that’s not so unattainable.

We’d like to thank our corporate partners for their attendance and support this holiday season – Jerome Rauch – Walmart, John Elliott – Kroger and Jay Ricker – Ricker’s Oil and am/pm convenience stores and Two Men and A Truck. Thanks to Dunkin’ Donuts and GFS Marketplace for providing coffee and hot cocoa to all. Of course, we couldn’t have a tree lighting ceremony without our partners at Barth Electric. Thanks to the folks at WISH TV-8 for loaning Eric to us and for hosting and promoting the WISHTree toy collections throughout the season and at the December 13 Colts game at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Of course, this is just the beginning of the season for us. If you’d like to involve your business or organization, we’d love to have you join us! WIBC Radiothon hourly sponsorships and in-kind sponsorships are still available at WIBCRadiothon.org. Or, you can become a toy collection site and host a collection box – last year we were able to play Santa to over 900 families because of donations collected in offices and store fronts across Central Indiana! Ring a bell, host an on-line red kettle or just drop a few bucks in the kettle as you go by. With a $3 million goal, we can use all the help we can get!

Jay Ricker sponsored a tent for his Ricker’s am/pm convenience stores  just outside the State Fair’s grandstands and invited us to join him for two days. The storms held off and we helped am/pm provide cold beverages for over-heated fairgoers as well as sharing giveaways and information on all our programs.

A big thanks to Jay Ricker and Mike Jones for donating the space and coordinating the effort. That generosity goes a long way in helping us involve the community in our mission. We’d also like to thank all of the volunteers who helped us over the past two days. Time is a precious commodity and we appreciate that they share theirs with us.

We’ll be at the tent tonight until 10pm, so if you stop off for a corndog or an ear of corn near the grandstands, stroll over and grab a Gatorade from the folks at am/pm and say “hi”.

Jay Ricker presents Major Keith Welch with the final donations from their red kettle contest. Ricker's BP locations raised over $4,000 in this market for The Salvation Army.

Jay Ricker is serious about raising support for The Salvation Army. So much so that he put his employees up to a challenge. The BP am/pm store that collected the most money in their Salvation Army countertop kettles this Christmas season would win a two-hour visit with him. The challenge got competitive when the employees learned that Ricker would be visiting dressed as a clown, passing out free hotdogs to patrons.

We are so grateful for this unique and creative approach to inspiring giving. Out of the nearly 20 Ricker-owned BP am/pm stations in this market, the store at 52nd and Keystone topped all others by collecting nearly $575 this Christmas. And the total collected for these stores was just over $4,040! And that was just in our market – Ricker had at least three other stores to reward for their fundraising sucesses.

So, thank you to all of you who participated by dropping your change into the BP kettles. And thank you to the Ricker family and employees for hosting and competing in the challenge. Your contest helps us continue “doing the most good” for our neighbors who are struggling. And a special thanks to you, Mr. Ricker, for having the humility to dress up and the compassion for others that inspired this contest in the first place!

If you’d like to find new ways to be remarkable in your community, give Kristen Grills, Corporate Relations Director, a call at 224-1019. Together, we can make a difference right here in our city.

This morning, The Northwest Indianapolis Kiwanis Club celebrated their first Salvation Army intern, Aquita Brown.

This past Fall, the Kiwanis Club of Northwest Indianapolis established an internship program in memory of Terry Shaffer, a long time Kiwanis member and supporter of The Salvation Army.  Terry volunteered countless hours ringing the bell at Salvation Army red kettles.  After his recent passing, Terry’s wife, Nancy, and fellow Kiwanis members decided to honor his life by finding new and creative ways to spread the word about The Salvation Army’s need for volunteer bell-ringers.

This morning, The Northwest Indianapolis Kiwanis Club celebrated the accomplishments of their first Salvation Army intern, Aquita Brown. Aquita, a student from the Savannah College of Art & Design, spearheaded the bell-ringing efforts for The Salvation Army’s Central City Corps in downtown Indianapolis. She focused on involving store managers and employees at each kettle location in the volunteer ringing efforts.

“Terry would be so happy and so proud to see this program,” said Terry’s wife, Nancy Shaffer.

Although the bell-ringing season has come to an end, the Grassroots Marketing Internship will continue in the spring semester. The internship is open to college students pursuing a degree in a communications, marketing, or public relations. This intern will concentrate on the volunteer partnership we have with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  If you would like to find out more about this internship contact The Salvation Army’s Intern Coordinator, Elizabeth Wilhelm.

And if your company is interested in exploring ways to partner with The Salvation Army right here in your community, give Kristen a call at 224-1019.

Do you realize that a week ago you changed lives? I’m not kidding. When you answered my call (or made that call yourself) you made a decision that will have a profound impact on someone’s life. If you were able to listen during our WIBC Radiothon last weekend, you heard the stories of women in our shelter, of volunteers who understand what it’s like to give to those who are struggling, of Angela who was able to turn her life around at our Harbor Light rehabilitation center. Your generosity makes that happen!

When you drop a dollar into a kettle on your way out of Walmart or when you set up an on-line red kettle to encourage giving and spread the word about how you support Salvation Army programs, you’re not just making a donation. When you give to The Salvation Army, you are making an investment in the lives of men, women and children right here in your community. That’s a better return than Wall Street these days!

Thanks for all you do to help us do what we do – it’s a partnership we don’t take for granted.

Once inside, fans would find a flyer inside the game programs encouraging them to check out the WIBC Radiothon website to give to support programs for homeless women and children, at-risk kids and disaster services.

Thanks to our Radiothon Chair, Quinn Bucker and to Kevin Messenger for coordinating the event with us. Thanks to the Conseco Fieldhouse greeters team for putting all 3,000 of those flyers in the programs and helping us spread the word on behalf of those in need this season. And thanks to the entire team at Conseco Fieldhouse for hosting our group. Go Pacers!

And, of course, if you’d like to find out more or partner with us for our WIBC Radiothon this December 12-14, please visit our site at WIBCRadiothon.org or give me (Kristen) a call at 224-1019.

Only recently I discovered that these fuel stations and convenience stores are locally owned and operated by Jay and Nancy Ricker’s Ricker Oil Company of Anderson, IN. This community-minded and generous couple has involved every one of the Ricker’s BP am/pm locations in our Red Kettle campaign. So, when you’re picking up a sandwich or a bag of chips to get you from here to there, you can turn your pocket change into shelter for the homeless or after-school programs for at-risk city kids.

Tune in to our WIBC Radiothon this December 12-14 to hear more about how the Rickers support their community and The Salvation Army. And, if you’d like to become a Radiothon hourly sponsor, you can learn more at our Radiothon event site or you can give me (Kristen) a call at 224-1019. The need is great this season, so every dollar makes a difference!