Salvation Army Donations Up This Year; Dazzling Donations to Salvation Army
CHO: Welcome back. It's 42 minutes after the hour. It's that time of year again. The Salvation Army bell-ringers are back, and they are bringing in big donations, more than just hard cash. People are dropping gold coins, even diamonds into the little red buckets. We're joined by Major George Hood, the national community relations and development secretary for the Salvation Army. Major Hood, good morning. Thanks for joining us.</s>MAJOR GEORGE HOOD, DEVELOPMENT SECRETARY, SALVATION ARMY: Oh, thank you for having me.</s>CHO: I understand you've been a bell ringer since the age of 10 and have been doing it every year since then. Congratulations. That's quite impressive. We hear every year about bell ringers finding the strange but incredibly valuable items in the kettle. So what types of things have you found this year?</s>HOOD: Well this year already we've seen from a $20 gold coin in Ft. Myers Florida, which, by the way is the seventh straight year that someone has dropped one of these gold coins into a kettle in Ft. Myers, to five South African krugerrands and a $5,000 diamond ring. All sorts of things will appear in the red kettles, and it's kind of fascinating to watch.</s>CHO: The gold coin that you mentioned that's worth $1,400 based on gold prices these days, the note there said "In Loving Memory of Mimi," which is such a nice gesture. A lot of people are wondering what you do with all these valuable items. Do you sell them then for the cash?</s>HOOD: We do. It's very important we liquidate them into real cash, take them to jewelers and coin dealers and have them evaluated, and they tell us what it's worth, because it's important to understand the money that's raised in the red kettles, in every local community across the United States, that money stays in that community to meet the needs of families there. We can do a lot more with a gold coin by liquidating it and getting it the cash than looking at it in all of its beauty.</s>CHO: Obviously we don't need to remind people that the economy, you know, we're facing tough times with the economy. Has that impacted you in terms of donations this year?</s>HOOD: Well, we've seen a very interesting thing take place over the last three years with the struggling economy. The American people are so generous and have placed so much trust in the salvation Army, we have seen a growth in the amount of money we raise in the red kettles three consecutive years.</s>CHO: Do you know how much you've raised so far?</s>HOOD: Last year we raised $142 million in the red kettle program. So and I looked at numbers yesterday, and we're about two percent ahead of where we were a year ago at the same time. so it's obviously that the American public still believes in that red kettle program.</s>CHO: It's nostalgia, too, to a certain degree. I found this really interesting. I remember reading recently that you -- well, I know that you've been accepting online donations for about seven years, but this year you're testing something out new with mobile devices that the kettle ringers actually carry with them in part so that there's no excuse anymore if you don't carry cash with you, right? How does it work?</s>HOOD: That's right. We're trying to stay on the cutting edge with technology and the device you're referencing is called The Square, and it's a very simple little postage stamp-sized device that you put into your mobile phone, your Smartphone, and you can swipe a credit card through it and make a donation.</s>CHO: Wow.</s>HOOD: You have to get the app, of course. The app with the Salvation Army Donation Page. When you fire it up, it says how much do you want to donate. You enter the number, swipe your card, and in a matter of seconds the transaction is complete.</s>CHO: You know, I -- I know that some people know this but some people don't. So just remind our viewers who don't know just a little bit about the programs that these donations will support.</s>HOOD: Well the program has really fund first of all, the Christmas programs that we do all across the country. We want to make sure that during this very special time of the year that families have food on the table, children have toys under the Christmas tree and that they are able to celebrate Christmas the way most of us do. The funds that are left over stay in that community, and those moneys are used to fund utility bill payments, making sure that people are eating healthy foods, warm coats for children during the winter, housing, seniors being taken care of, a variety of ministries and programs that we operate throughout the year.</s>CHO: Well, I wish you the best of luck for the rest of the holiday season. You still have some time to donate, of course. Major George Hood of the Salvation Army, we thank you.</s>HOOD: Thank you.</s>CHO: Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, Former President Bill Clinton talks to me about his wife Hillary's plans for the future and whether she may run for president. Also, what he thinks about Chelsea's job as a network correspondent Forty-six minutes after the hour. That interview is next.