Salvation Army to host ‘Red Kettle Kickoff’ at Fishback Stadium Nov. 27

Camas-Washougal Salvation Army (CWSA) employees and board members considered a wide variety of options for a new community event to raise awareness for their annual holiday fundraising campaign, but they couldn’t ignore the fact that football was a natural fit.

“One of our advisory board members said, ‘Well, it is football season, and it is a ‘kickoff’ (event), so why don’t we get the (local high school) football teams involved?’” CWSA envoy Samantha Wheeler said. “The idea is to make our ‘kettle kickoff’ a literal kickoff.”

The CWSA’s first “Red Kettle Kickoff” event, to be held at 5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 27, at Fishback Stadium at Washougal High School, will feature two teams — consisting of football players and staff members from Camas and Washougal high schools, as well as Camas City Councilman Don Chaney and Washougal Mayor David Stuebe — competing against each other to pass or kick the most footballs into a red kettle, with a trophy going to the winning squad.

“We have a giant red kettle, and it’s going to be at the 50-yard line, and (the competitors) are going to be 30 yards away, seeing who can get the most footballs into the kettle,” Wheeler said. “Each person will be given three tries, and they can either throw the football or kick it, but at least one member of each team has to kick it. They each get three tries to get a ball into the giant kettle, and they (receive) various points. After everybody goes, we calculate the points and whoever gets the most points wins the perpetual trophy.”

The event will be free of charge, but attendees can donate money or canned food at one of several “kettle stands” to be featured at the event.

The Red Kettle Kickoff also will include carnival-style, family friendly games with football-themed prizes.

“Weather permitting, we’ll have some field games, like cornhole and beanbags,” Wheeler said. “We’ll have giant inflatable footballs (people) can kick around. We’ll have a bunch of giveaways that are football-themed, like little fidget spinners and football keychains and football stress balls. We’ll be giving away chocolate bars that have a wrap on them with our registered ‘ring information,’ which is how (people can) go about volunteering to ‘ring the bell’ for us. And after the competition, anybody else who wants to try to throw the football in the kettle can try and do that.”

The event is “something new that we will build into an annual community event,” according to Jessica Wheeler, CWSA’s financial director and volunteer coordinator.

“I guess we’ll see how it goes this year to find out if it generates enough interest or not,” Samantha Wheeler said. “The whole idea behind it is obviously to kick off the (campaign) in a fun way, but (also) to bring awareness to what the red kettles are, what we’re doing with the money, and where it’s going, and get people in the giving spirit of the holidays.”

The CWSA also plans to use the event to notify residents about its intentions to win a statewide competition that awards financial prizes to Salvation Army branches that increase the highest amount of volunteer hours from the previous year.

“This is our first initial part of that big ‘try,’ and we’re really pushing it this year. We’re going for it,” Samantha Wheeler said. “Last year, we came in second (place in the state competition) and won $5,000, but this year, we’re going big. We’re going for first place. (We want to) bring awareness to our campaign and bring awareness to the competition that we’re entering, because I think if our community members knew that we’re trying to increase our volunteer hours in order to win more money to put back into our community, they would be more willing to help and step forward.”