I love the Salvation Army.  They do good things for people and make it easy for the rest of us to bring out our best selves by caring about others.  I love it at this time of year when we to a store and the bell ringers are there, greeting you and hoping that you will your donation to the little red kettle.  I love to give my girls the chance to learn compassion and to have giving hearts when we see them by giving them whatever change or cash I have available and having them put the money in the kettle.

Brett and I were talking about the Salvation Army just the other day and he said he thought it would be great if they could design a way to let people use their check cards.  Little did we know that just last year, they tried out that very thing right here in Dallas.  They found that Credit card donors were far more generous that cash donors -  they gave an average of $14 versus the $2 given by cash donors!

I love the fact that the Salvation Army is who started the original Angel Tree program and that it has been going on for 40 years.  And this year, they have joined up with JCPenny to do something new and wonderful – they have created the Angel Giving Tree program.

The Angel Giving Tree is described as:

From now until December 14, for the first-time ever, customers can adopt and shop online for Angels at www.jcp.com/angel, providing tens of thousands of children and seniors facing hardship in communities across the country with Christmas gifts.

They have even partnered with FedEx Ground, so that Angel Giving Tree gifts purchased through jcp.com can be shipped free of charge to any one of the 1,200 Salvation Army collection centers nationwide.  Could it get any easier?  Well actually, yes, yes it can.

See this bucket? I guess I should properly call it a kettle.  Well this kettle here, it is all mine.  Yup, my kettle.

My kettle and I am your virtual bell ringer.

So what do you do now?  You help me help them help those in need.

I set a goal of $150 and I know we can do that.  No one has to donate much, I know it is a tough year for most of us.  But if most of us donate a little, then there will be enough.

Think about it, click on my kettle and then be as generous as you can.

Thank you.