CAZENOVIA — Throughout the next few weeks, Cazenovia High School’s Salvation Army student ambassadors will be ringing in the holiday season with their annual Red Kettle Drive.
The bell-ringing fundraiser will benefit the local community through CazCares, a food pantry and clothing closet that serves low-income residents of the Cazenovia Central School District (CCSD) and surrounding areas of Madison County.
The drive is a student-run initiative organized each year in coordination with CazCares Client Services Director GiGi Redmond and with support from the CCSD administration.
This year, Salvation Army Student Ambassadors Max Reger, a freshman, Maura Phillips, a sophomore, Owen Woodworth, a junior, and Reid McMurtrie, a senior, are taking the lead in spreading the word and recruiting high school volunteers to ring bells at Kinney Drugs at 41 Albany St. and Tops Friendly Market at 71 Nelson St. every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday until Christmas.
The students will be ringing at Kinney and Tops from 4 to 8 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays and from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays.
“We expect a new set of students for every one-hour shift,” said McMurtrie.
The student ambassadors are responsible for organizing the bell-ringing schedule, signing up other students as volunteers, setting up and taking down the kettles, and collecting and counting the money raised.
According to McMurtrie, the fundraising goal this year is $10,000. Ninety percent of the donations collected will stay in the local community to help meet the needs of Cazenovia area families.
“CazCares has connected us to the Salvation Army and helps to distribute the donations,” said McMurtrie, who has been involved with the Red Kettle Drive since her freshman year. “Being part of the Red Kettle Campaign has shown me my passion for community service, and I love being able to share that with other students.”
CazCares is located at 101 Nelson St. For more information, visit cazcares.org.
