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Ringing in kindness

A Times reporter spends a day minding a Salvation Army kettle and gets a view of humanity's goodwill.

By VANESSA DE LA TORRE
Published December 23, 2005

[Times photo: Douglas R. Clifford]

Six-year-old Alyssa Jarnutowski and Nikki Carrus, right, listen to Salvation Army bandsman Fred Boycott play a Christmas carol on his cornet Monday as St. Petersburg Times reporter Vanessa de la Torre, center, volunteers as a bell ringer in front of a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

If standing in front of a Wal-Mart Supercenter with a brass bell and shiny red kettle taught me anything, it's that most people are not coldhearted misers.

Bargain hunters, for sure. But surprisingly generous.

I went to the Oldsmar Wal-Mart at the suggestion of my editor. Why don't you spend time as a Salvation Army bell ringer and see what happens, she said.

It seemed odd that, when tossing around the idea, she recalled a Friends episode where guitar-strummin' Phoebe volunteers as a bell ringer at Macy's in New York, then gets demoted after run-ins with passers-by who spilled drinks in the kettle and reached into it for bus change.

In other words, it appeared that the bosses wanted a holiday horror story and assigned me as bait. There was that kettle thief in St. Petersburg a few weeks ago. Now they would arm the new girl in the office with a bell to confront cash-strapped shoppers during Christmas week. Clang away in the name of charity! they conspired. Mu aha ha ha.

The assignment conjured up images of spending four hours ringing the bell, watching people hurry straight to the rollback savings without so much as a head nod.

From the start, it was much more pleasant.

At 4:15 p.m., I arrived late for my shift and found Rebecca Pyle huddled with her scarf, mittens, ringing device and kettle.

"They're very nice and sweet and kind and generous," she said of the Wal-Mart nation.

Pyle, a 51-year-old retiree from Dunedin, had been outside since 10 that morning and was volunteering until 5, an almost daily routine this time of year.

"I'm a bell ringer at church, so it seems natural," she said.

Then she pointed to the other store entrance a football field away, where my kettle and Fred Boycott awaited in a Salvation Army uniform.

Boycott, a jolly Canadian, was a good guy to have near the cash pot. He stayed for an hour, playing religious carols and Frosty the Snowman on his cornet. People gathered, plunking nickels, dimes and dollars into the kettle.

While he worked the crowd, I struggled with tying on a bright red apron. Not only did it cover my St. Petersburg Times press badge, it said, "I Am a Bell Ringer," allowing for the softest of introductions. Some people mouthed the words as they walked through the food court entrance, possibly wondering how I got the gig. Church group, maybe? High school community service project?

My wide smile and perky "Merry Christmas" belied my seedy status as a reporter.

Throughout the four hours, some encounters were, um, weird. ("Ho. Ho. HO," said one guy, right as he made eye contact). But most were the warm and fuzzy kind that fill newspaper pages during long holiday breaks.

One bespectacled blond approached the kettle and dug into a black and hot pink pouch. Once, twice, three times, at least four times, she pulled out coins, mostly pennies, that she had saved for three weeks. The girl was "7 going on 30," sighed her father, who tucked a folded dollar bill into the slot.

At 6:25 p.m., I pulled out my notebook and wrote: "Still impressed with humanity." But while incredibly rewarding, the experience was imperfect. Ten minutes felt like 30 when standing, sometimes sitting in the cold. Plumes of cigarette smoke found homes in my nest of hair.

And for all those who gave, many more did not. Going in, I had ideas of what might happen if one shopper after the other spurned my kettle, the foremost being that I would shadow the ingrates while rattling my bell like an old man shaking his fist.

Once on the sidewalk, however, nothing could mess with a real goodwill rush. Those who ignored the bell tended to wear the same elaborate eye makeup, lovingly gelled hairdos, Mossimo hoodies and orthodontia. My clanging calls for charity became muted, somehow, once they reached their pierced ears.

The teenagers reminded me of my younger self.

Earlier, Boycott suggested that guilt was an unnecessary tool in kettle-keeping.

"We know people have choices as far as how they want to give," he said. There are church baskets, Christmas presents, love.

The next morning, the Salvation Army counted the donations.

The pennies and bills added up to $179.49.

"A real haul!" I thought, until the Salvation Army's Maj. Ron Smith said that popular kettle sites in the Clearwater area average $300 to $400 a day.

The red kettle campaign, which raises money for toys and food baskets for about 8,500 families in Tampa Bay, ends on Christmas Eve. But what they preach seems true: generosity knows no season.

As my shift ended Monday night, a middle-aged woman walked to the kettle and tucked in a $10 bill, wrapped around several others.

She looked me right in the eye.

"Thank you for your effort," she said.

Words that a reporter never hears from a stranger.

[Last modified December 23, 2005, 01:13:18]