MIDLAND, Texas —
It’s that time of year again when the Salvation Army bell ringers come out to help raise money.
But according to commanding officer of the Midland-Odessa Salvation Army Captain Robert Coriston, they could always use more bell ringers.
“We need volunteers, besides the fact volunteers bring in more money than our paid bell ringers, it's just a great tie in between the community supporting people giving to the kettles,” said Coriston.
Coriston says that even though the bell ringers are a seasonal fundraiser, they’re more important than people might think when it comes to Salvation Army operations as a whole.
“People associate the bell ringing with all of our Christmas programs, right? Because it's happening at the same time... But what people don't understand is that those bell ringers actually each side, how much we get to do all year round. It is our biggest fundraiser that the Salvation Army has each year,” Coriston continued.
While the Salvation Army appreciates people donating whatever amount they can to the cause, no matter how big or small, time donated to volunteer is valued just as much and goes a long way according to Coriston.
“We actually won't map out everything we can do for the year until year end because we need to know exactly if the budget for because we don't know how the bell ringers are going to do how the seasonal donations are going to do, how year end donations are going to do. So, we kind of we get a rough estimate by how much we do each year, but it fluctuates so much that we need to wait. We got all hands on deck, we're pushing this season because we know the better we do, the harder we work now, the more we get to help throughout the year,” Coriston added.
If you'd like to volunteer to become a bell ringer you can go to Register to Ring for more information.