Monday, January 19, 2009

Salvation Army will make budget work

By Ben Bauman

Topeka — The local chapter of the Salvation Army was hoping to see about $530,000 from the kettle campaign and end-of-year mail-in donations. Right now, they are about $100,000 short of that goal.

"429 thousand 856 dollars and 99 cents," is where Captain Chuck Yockey says they stood on Monday.

Still, Captain Yockey says he's figured out a way to make the budget work.

"I've whittled and I've shaved and I've come up with a new magic number of 460-thousand," he says. "If I can make $460,000 by January 31st, I believe the rest of my budget will be intact."

That means, they need another $30.000 in the next two weeks. If that happens and monthly mail-in donations total at least $8,500 no staff or programs will need to be cut.

Those programs provide meals, commodities and other needs of the community. In addition, nearly 90 children attend Day Care here. The programs exist because there are needs, but they're all an extension of what the Salvation Army is first.

"Everything we do points to Sunday," says Yockey. "Everything that we do. If we get away from that, we're just providing services like everyone else."

Captain Yockey also says the Salvation is considering some other ways to raise donations including a possible golf tournament.

More like this

Comments

Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.