“There you are. I’ve been looking for one of you,” a friendly woman said, digging into her purse. She dropped a twenty into my red kettle faster than I could say Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
This was going to be easy.
Eight-and-a-half hours later, with cold, tired feet, I trudged across the parking lot and tumbled into my car. What I saw that day opened my eyes.
I had considered myself generous because I often drop my pocket change into those ubiquitous red kettles every Christmas season, although rarely more than a dollar.
But now the tables were turned, and I was the one looking for help.
A young mother stops by with her 3-year-old daughter. As the little girl slips coins in the kettle, the woman explains they never pass one without giving.
“Even the pennies and nickels add up,” Capt. Martha Burchett with the Bell County Salvation Army tells me later.
About the time my arms felt like they were falling off - which was only 11 a.m. - a clean, red pickup pulls into the front row parking lot and two women spring out.
“I got it, Mama,” the driver says.
But Mama is quick. She opens her purse and pulls out some cash. Not to be outdone, the daughter matches the contribution, stuffing several bills into the kettle. Turns out this Killeen duo was shopping for the Salvation Army giving tree. Every year, they adopt two children.
But not everybody was that generous. An elderly couple walked by as if I were invisible - twice. And a young woman in purple sweats four times ignored me.
“They are no different than the person who drops the hundred dollar bill,” a full-time bell ringer said afterward, explaining how he opens doors for everyone regardless their generosity.
A white-haired man digs through his front pocket, careful, he says, not to drop any pills in the kettle by mistake.
“I bet you find all kinds of stuff in there.”
A painter, about 50, wearing camouflage pants and a U.S. Navy sweatshirt, engages me from about 50 feet away. Now he’s stuffing money in the kettle, talking about the border wall, migrant workers and the Big Three automakers looking for financial help in Washington. He asks me to keep an eye on his shopping cart, which holds a new air compressor, while he runs to the opposite end of the shopping center.
A senior with a white beard, shorts and strange shoes that look like pogo sticks on the heels feeds quarters into the kettle like it’s a slot machine while grumbling about a close call he just had with another motorist.
“They (bell ringers) offer a lot of ears, and listening, and chatting with a lot of people throughout the season,” the captain tells me later.
A man parks a Lincoln in the handicapped spot, sits smoking with his Chihuahua while his wife goes shopping. It looks like he’s digging through the console and upholstery. He limps up to the kettle, drops a handful of change and says, “I don’t walk too good.”
A man walks by and says, “Making any money?” like I was on a fishing boat at Lake Belton. A woman snickers as she passes, asks if I’m going to hear bells in my sleep. Another woman walks briskly past and comments on how tired I must be. None give.
“If everybody in Bell County would just drop a dollar, we’d make our goal,” says the captain.
Here comes a mom with four boys, all with big blue eyes, one in the cart, one pushing, all giving.
Now a woman gets out of her clean, white Continental, and stops in her tracks when she sees me. We chat about the weather. She digs in her purse and drops some folding money in the kettle.
Later, a full moon rises above a restaurant across the highway, and I reflect on the day.
Time after time, women walking across the parking lot would see the kettle and their purses would part like the Red Sea. For many men, their hands instinctively reach for the back pocket, and out comes the wallet. These folks know how to give. When they arrive at the kettle, their money is neatly folded so it fits in the small slots on the lid.
The captain says all this money stays in Bell County for things like Christmas assistance, utilities, prescriptions and homeless prevention because it’s “cheaper to help them stay in a home rather than to start life all over again.”
So far, donations are several thousand dollars lower than expected. Capt. Burchett said they need more bell ringers to help reach their goal - $90,000 - by Christmas Eve.
But she’s hopeful, and says she can count on Bell County to come through.
The folks at Big Lots! last Friday poured $138.78 into my kettle.
