Salvation Army Rings In Holidays for 100th Year

No man is an island, entire of itself. . .

Any man’s death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind;

And therefore never send to know

for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

--John Donne, 1624

Philip Canale, just out of prison, stands on a street corner, bell in hand, beckoning passersby to drop a donation into the Salvation Army’s red kettles for all the losers of the world.

His and hundreds of other bells across the country peal for the hungry and homeless, for the drunks and drug addicts, for the poor and the pitiful.

They peal for Adam, Canale’s 5-year-old son, born out of wedlock while his father was in prison, and for all the other poor children, so they might have toys and clothes for Christmas.

“I believe if every person that passed just put in a nickel, one nickel, they’d make a lot of people happy,” Canale said. “They’d bring a lot of smiles to people’s faces.”

The red kettles are 100 years old this season, as much a Christmas fixture as carolers and shoppers. A Salvation Army captain began the appeals in San Francisco in 1891 to buy Christmas dinners for the poor.

The Salvation Army aids more than 4.5 million people at Thanksgiving and Christmas every year.

The holidays take on special meaning in hard times. “There are more people in need than ever before,” said Col. Leon Ferraez at the Salvation Army’s headquarters in Alexandria, Va.

He estimated that more than $150 million will be raised this year to help the needy--not only at Christmas, but long after. This army does battle in homes and nursing homes, in hospitals and shelters and prisons.

The Salvation Army message is printed across the tripod under Canale’s kettle: “Sharing is caring. . . . Need has no season.”

“I believe it with all my heart,” he said. “I believe if nobody ever shared with me I’d be a very bitter person. The Salvation Army took me from prison. They gave me a chance to prove that I’m worthy, myself, of work. They took me out of a no-win situation and made me a winner.”

His past life led him to the depths of despair. Only 24, he was released from prison in October after serving six years for unarmed burglary and robbery committed support his drug habit.

Instead of seeking a handout, he sought a job with the Salvation Army. As a child he belonged to the corps in Quincy, Mass.

“I knew they were a good organization from my childhood memories, and I happened to look them up in the phone book,” Canale said. “My dream was to get into the social service field when I got out of prison.”

The Salvation Army hired him for $90 a week as a part-time shelter security guard here.

This season he is ringing bells eight hours a day for $5 an hour. The extra money will buy toys and clothes for his son; this is the first Christmas they will be together.

“I haven’t had much contact with him,” Canale said. “He really doesn’t know who I am. . . . I just want to make him have a full Christmas.”

Most bell-ringers are volunteers; some of the new kettles have self-ringing bells. The Salvation Army also serves those it hires.

“Some people, rather than receiving a handout, really want to work and pay their own way,” said Ferraez. “In a sense many people being paid would be recipients of the Christmas fund if they weren’t working at the kettles. They feel they are working to provide a wonderful Christmas for their families. (They) could be clients.”

But there is more to it than money for Canale.

“The reward is to see other people happy. I’ve had my whole life to see people miserable and angry. Now I get to see people trying to turn it into happiness. I don’t feel I can ever repay the people I hurt, but maybe I can help somebody else and that can make me feel better about what I’m doing in life.”

Somebody could be Susan Ross or Komeekco McMahan, welfare-dependent mothers barely scraping by. They came to the Salvation Army center in Framingham to get toys and clothes for their children.

But the Salvation Army is so strapped this year that Framingham and some other centers have only toys and food to give. Just the same, it will be a good holiday season for the women.

“I was homeless four years ago,” said Ross. “From being homeless to be able to stand on my feet with four kids, I feel good. I remember back in my days when my mother struggled to give to eight kids. But we woke up to one happy Christmas. You know how kids want to wake up to one nice Christmas?”

McMahan wanted to get at least something for each of her three children. “I’ll be lost, I’ll really be lost,” without the help of the Salvation Army, she said. “All my money goes into paying bills.”

Canale’s gift is one of his own making: a calling with the Salvation Army, a Christmas free of alcohol and other drugs, a chance to share his prison experiences with the unwanted and unloved in hopes of guiding them out of harm’s way. He says he is giving help instead of hurt now:

“I feel like I’m doing the most worthwhile thing I ever did in my life.”