People who rely on the Salvation Army for baskets of groceries on the Thanksgiving holiday may see less food than they have in the past.
Carthage Salvation Army Capt. Richard McDonald said the local group is already in debt to the national Salvation Army office because of last year, when it had to buy all the groceries, including the turkeys, it handed out over the holidays.
Now he’s telling people coming to the group for help that there will likely be less to give out.
“What we’ve been telling clients at this time is that we’re not sure yet of the groceries for Thanksgiving,” McDonald said. “We will guarantee the meat, the turkey for Thanksgiving. We’re telling donors to continue donating groceries because we’ll need them for Christmas.”
McDonald said the group plans to give out complete food baskets for the Christmas holiday.
He said last year’s shortfall was a result of a series of events.
He said the group received virtually no food for the pantry leading up to Thanksgiving 2008.
“There were no donations until after Thanksgiving so we had to buy all the food that went into the Thanksgiving baskets,” McDonald said. “Of course we had counted on one of the big meat processors to donate the turkeys and they didn’t come through so we ended up having to buy all the turkeys as well. That puts us in a position this year of having to cut back because we’ve been told to by headquarters. And we’re not the only one, all across the Salvation Army world we’re cutting back but we’re spending more money on social services. Unfortunately the cut backs are coming in the way of employees and hours and programs.”
McDonald said the group gave out approximately 700 food baskets in the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays combined.
He said donations are down from some of the donors the Salvation Army typically relies on.
“It used to be that we would get regular collections from school and service clubs and different groups and people would come by on a regular basis and donate,” McDonald said. “They still do but it’s less often and it’s smaller amount.”
McDonald said he’s already cut back on paid staffing. His soup kitchen cook and administrative assistant have both been cut to part time status.
“We have a problem in that we can’t keep going on year to year buying all the groceries because we simply don’t get that much donated for groceries,” McDonald said. “We were in debt from last year and the previous year and it doesn’t look well for the future. If we want to help people throughout the year we can’t begin our year in debt. October, November and December are actually the first three months of the year.”
