The St Susan Center’s Holiday Haul, the Salvation Army Red Kettle Drives, Angel Tree and Christmas food baskets, and Toys For Tots have all begun their collection seasons and are looking towards more to come before the end.

Cherie Rowland, executive director of St Susan Center, said that so far things have been going good for the Holiday Haul, but the annual collection event only began on Thursday.

“This is our first day and having it at 22 degrees with a wind chill that makes it feel like zero is crazy,” Rowland said. “But, so far it has been good. We have had many people stop by but not a lot of food donations yet.”

Each season, Rowland said the center’s goal is to beat the numbers of last season. Last year St Susan Center collected 20,000 pounds of food and had monetary donations totaling $21,000. Rowland added that they were lucky people are already stopping by, and thanked Dan Keefe for taking over for Keith Martin both last year and this year, along with their sponsors; Media One Radio Group, Jamestown Cycle Shop, Jamestown Mattress and Epic Floats.

From left Cummins JEP employees Jeff Seely of Jamestown and Dan Burns of Panama, volunteer their time to man the St. Susan Center’s Holiday Haul/Stuff the Truck food drive at Brooklyn Square, in the Jamestown Cycle Shop’s parking lot, 10 Harrison St., Thursday. This year’s event is scheduled to take place Friday from 6 – 6 p.m. and Saturday from 8 – 2 p.m. P-J photo by Christopher Blakeslee

“The Holiday Haul helps sustain St Susan’s for the first quarter of next year,” Rowland said. “It helps keep us afloat and be able to continue to serve meals every day. We get so many donations, both food and monetary.”

Rowland said the monetary donations go towards helping with general operating costs and that food donations go to St Susan Center’s food pantry to help feed the people that they serve.

St Susan Center is down at the Jamestown Cycle Shop, 10 Harrison Street, for the Holiday Haul from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. People can come and find the Jamestown Mattress truck, Jamestown Awning trailer or St Susan vehicle to drop items off and there will be a team there to help collect items. Rowland said St Susan Center will also be open Christmas Day to allow people to come enjoy a meal from noon to 2 p.m., and she thanked the community that has helped to make that possible.

Another local holiday collection happening in the city is the Salvation Army’s red kettle drive. Major Kim Merchant said as of right now for this year, the red kettle drives are below where they should be at this time, and that they have had a hard time getting volunteers. The Salvation Army also does their annual Angel Tree and Christmas food baskets, serving 236 families and 853 people with the baskets and 436 children with the Angel Tree, where children 12 and under get to pick out multiple items. Merchant thanked the community for their help with those initiatives.

“Christmas is a big fundraiser for us,” Merchant said. “We use this money all year for our food pantry and basic needs to help the community. All the money is used locally to help us continue to serve the people in need in our community.”

Merchant reported that the Salvation Army’s food pantry is the largest in the county, serving more than 1,500 people a month. With the addition of the Food Express through Food Bank Western New York, she said there are an additional 900 people in need of their help.

“It could be your neighbor standing in line at our food pantry,” Merchant said. “You never know what people are going through or who might need help. We need the help from the community to come alongside us to continue to be able to help them.”

The third holiday collection drive currently ongoing in the city is Toys for Tots. Terri Johnson, one of the local Toys for Tots coordinators, said things have been going well so far this year and that box sites will begin to be collected within the next week and a half, starting this weekend. She reported in some areas toy collection is down, though monetary donations are coming in as well.

“Our applications are up around 100 children more than last year but we are still taking applications until next Wednesday,” Johnson said. “We will be doing our distribution on the 20th and 21rst. We take applications longer than some other organizations and can take donations up until the distribution days in order to meet the demand.”

Applications are made available online, and Johnson said they are always willing to help with no judgement. Distribution is done drive-through style so people do not even need to get out of their cars, to make it as easy as possible. Johnson added that they tend to go until the end of the season just because there is always some last-minute need, and that if the box is gone from a site but people still have items to donate they can always reach out and the coordinators will make accommodations to get the items.

Toys for Tots is a Marine Corps. Reserve program, though Johnson said they are connected but not part of the Marines. She said it is a well structured, completely volunteer run, organization.

“All three coordinators are doing this outside of their full-time jobs,” Johnson said. “We can usually get back to you at nights or on weekends, and we ask for people to be patient because we are all doing this outside of our full time jobs.”

Johnson welcomed anyone who had questions or were looking for somewhere to donate — with box locations in both the north and south county — to reach out via email at Jamestown.ny@toysfortots.org.