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Their efforts sustain a lovely tintinnabulation

By CHRISTINA REXRODE
Published December 15, 2006

PODS employees and volunteer bell ringers Marlena Linville, left, and Tim Schlachter, watch as Chris Keppeler drops in a donation Thursday at the Tri-City Plaza Publix in Largo.
	[Times photo: Douglas R. Clifford]

In the Salvation Army's formula for raising Christmas donations, there's never a shortage of kettles and bells.

But the supply of volunteers sometimes runs dry. Across the country, there are 20,000 kettles that need guardians, and the corps resorts to paying bell ringers when it's especially strapped.

To help, Don Newman, who chairs the Clearwater corps' board of advisers, asked longtime friend Pete Warhurst if he could spend a few hours as a bell ringer. Warhurst replied, "I'll do one better than that."

But it's really closer to 250 better. Warhurst, CEO of Clearwater moving and storage company PODS Enterprises, said the company would adopt one kettle of the nearly 30 around North Pinellas. The kettles are set up six days a week from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. until just before Christmas.

About 250 of the 400 local PODS workers signed up to man the kettle outside the Publix in the Tri-City Plaza on U.S. 19. Employees who volunteer during the workday can count those hours as work time.

PODS isn't the only group to provide bell ringers for the Clearwater corps. Church groups, Kiwanis, Rotarians, members of the American Bar Association and others sign up for kettle time. But Salvation Army spokesman Lt. Col. Tom Jones said he's not aware of other businesses joining the bell-ringing ranks here. And he doesn't know of any other local groups ever taking full responsibility for one kettle.

Compared with this time last year, Jones said, donations to the Tri-City kettle have doubled. "They've been very productive," he said. "Whatever they've been doing has been good."

Christina Rexrode can be reached at 727 893-8318 or crexrode@sptimes.com.

[Last modified December 14, 2006, 23:56:17]