Liquor Marts bar Salvation Army kettle campaign

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/11/2018 (2228 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Salvation Army kettles have gotten the boot from Liquor Marts across Manitoba.

The charitable organization’s Winnipeg-based Prairie division found out in recent weeks it will no longer be welcome in any stores operated by the Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Corp. For the past decade, the local arm had been allowed to station a volunteer in various stores to collect monetary donations for its Christmas Kettle campaign.

“We got the response that they’ve had a change this year, and that we wouldn’t be able to have the manned kettles (by volunteers) in the stores. Essentially saying that they have a policy that does not allow for that and we’ve been an exception to that for a few years, and now they’re applying that to everybody,” Maj. Rob Kerr of the Salvation Army said Thursday in a telephone interview.

The Crown corporation is “working on corporate guidelines” around solicitation by charitable groups in its stores and it will “not allow any exceptions” at this time, MLL communications officer Susan Harrison said in an email statement.

“Over the years, we have received some complaints from customers that they generally did not like being solicited for donations at Liquor Marts. For this reason, we have eliminated face-to-face customer asks and in-store fundraisers,” Harrison said.

“To clarify: the complaints were not directed at just one charitable organization, but rather general complaints about being solicited for a donation within our stores.”

Being banned is a major blow to the annual Christmas Kettle campaign, Kerr said, as about 10 per cent of its donations were collected at Liquor Mart locations.

“We understand MLL’s decision and we respect that, and we appreciate the support they’ve given us over the years. For us, going forward, we are trying to figure out how we will manage this,” Kerr said. “Across Manitoba, we raised about $60,000 in the MLL stores last year at Christmas, so we’re concerned about how we make that up.”

Kerr said the kettle campaign usually operated in about six Winnipeg stores, as well as Liquor Marts in Neepawa, Thompson, Brandon and Portage la Prairie.

During the Christmas 2017 season, the program raised about $530,000 across the province — money which is used to fund community-based programs such as children’s summer camps, after-school programs, food banks and seniors programming, Kerr said.

Harrison said the MLL policy seeks to create a fair playing field for all charitable organizations.

“Each year, Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries is proud to support more than 350 charitable, non-profit and community organizations,” she said in an email. “Currently, there is no program that allows other groups the same access the Salvation Army has had to our customers for fundraising purposes.”

However, the Salvation Army has been selected in December as the recipient of the MLL’s coin box program — unstaffed donation boxes on Liquor Mart counters.

“The coin box program is an initiative with an application process in place which allows all charitable organizations the same opportunity to apply for inclusion in the program,” Harrison said. “As for next season, we’re currently in the process of reviewing all our fundraising requests from external organizations.”

Kerr said the Christmas Kettle campaign is still welcome in major retail outlets such as Superstore, Safeway, Sobeys, Walmart and Canadian Tire. “We hope that our supporters and donors out there will find us wherever we are and will continue to support us as they have in the past.”

The campaign’s fundraising goal is $370,000 in Manitoba, $21 million nationally.

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca