The holiday season makes everyone a little frantic. With people running from store to store trying to buy presents and food for their loved ones, it gets pretty easy to get caught up in the stress of the holidays. It is always easy to forget the people less fortunate than ourselves. The season can bring them down because they may not know how to get a present for their child or they may not know where their next meal comes from. That is where the red kettles come in.

The Salvation Army is an organization started in 1865 by Williams Booth and his wife Catherine. The organization collects money to help stop hunger, provide shelter and much more. They do so much during the year, but they are most famous for their red kettles.

Joseph McFee wanted a way to help bring food to families in need during the holiday season. He didn’t quite know where or how he would be able to fund a project like this. He went back to his younger days and remember seeing a kettle back in England that people would put coins into as they passed. The next day he tried that same idea and it worked. He got enough money that he needed to feed the poor and the idea of the red kettle soon spread from coast to coast and around the world.

The Salvation Army sets up these red kettles outside of stores across the nation. The end goal: to raise enough money to be able to provide a meal to the less fortunate during this time. The next time someone passes by a red kettle, put a dollar or two in and soon know that a hot meal is going to be delivered shortly.