The Army no one fears

On Christmas Day 1997 I wrote about the Salvation Army and the good people who fought for it. The Army is always looking for volunteers, and this is the time of year they need them the most.

A look behind the Salvation Army’s Red Kettles

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Dec. 25, 1997

The Salvation Army is the army no one fears.

It is the army whose insignia and uniformed soldiers and red kettles nearly everyone recognizes and trusts.

It is the friendly army that millions of shoppers like Joan Hess of Pittsburgh are happy to give money to this time of year even when they aren't always sure exactly what the army is, what it does or what it wages war on.

On a cruelly cold Friday afternoon earlier this month, Hess helped her young sons Jared and Dustin put some coins into the Salvation Army kettle outside the Kmart store at Parkway Center Mall.

When asked why she donated the money, Hess said, "It's a Christian organization, isn't it? A form of church? I'm a Christian. They do a lot to help poor people and everything."

For similar reasons. Angel Shulin of Mount Washington took time to dig out a dollar for her son Michael to jam into the kettle, because she knows the Salvation Army helps "kids who don't have enough."

Hess and Shulin understand the basics of what the Salvation Army is all about.

But like most people, they don't know much detail about the quaint army of do-gooders that, thanks to its kettles and toy and clothing drives, is at its most conspicuous during the Christmas holidays.

This time of year is when they need volunteers for their Red Kettle campaigns. But most of the year — except when they are showing up at house fires or natural disasters — the good-hearted, God-minded men and women who make up the officers (clergy) and soldiers (laity) of the Salvation Army operate quietly, almost invisibly.

For Salvation Army rank-and-filers like Lt. Celestin Nkounkou, who was manning the kettle at Parkway Center Mall, it's Christmas year-round.

He and his fellow officers never stop giving. They work hard and long hours for little pay, doing the work of God and man, providing spiritual and social succor for the "least" among us who need it most — the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the unsober.

Nkounkou, like all officers in the Army, is an ordained minister. He was born and raised in the French Congo and once worked for the defense industry as a computer programmer in Connecticut. Now he runs the Army's Westside Corps in Pittsburgh's West End with his wife, Lt. Stefanie Nkounkou.

Nkounkou had been "standing kettle" at Kmart's side door since 11 a.m. When he wasn't playing traditional Christmas songs like “Joy to the World" on his trombone, he was holding the door for shoppers and handing out small green and red thank-you cards to those who dropped money in his familiar red kettle.

The messages stamped on the front of the cards he gave out capture the values that power the Salvation Army: "Need Knows No Season," "Sharing Is Caring," "Do Something!"

And on the back, under a flap picturing the Three Magis on their trek to the newly born Christ Child, is a biblical message from the apostle Matthew, chapter 25, verse 35.

Matthew is quoting Jesus, but he could just as easily have been speaking for the millions whose bodies and souls have been touched by the Salvation Army:

"For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in."

Not an Army at all

Despite its military command structure and lingo and old-style military dress code, the Salvation Army is not really an army at all. It's actually a Christian church headquartered in London, where it was founded in 1865 by William Booth.

Booth was a former Methodist preacher who realized that the urban poor whose souls he was trying to save needed soup, shelter and soap before they would listen to his Christian rap about attaining eternal salvation.

When he soon saw that mainline churches didn't really want a low class of converts worshiping in their pews, Booth set up Christian Mission Centers in tents and in theaters.

By 1878, he had adopted the name "Salvation Army" and the rank of general. Replete with a flag, brass bands and martial music, his military organization attacked social ills, using private money and the precepts of Christian love.

In the plain words of its mission statement:

"The Salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the Christian Church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in his name without discrimination."

Because the Salvation Army does most of its good works on a local level, most people don't realize how big Booth's church has become.

Worldwide, it has 25,545 officers (ministers) and 5 million-plus members in more than 103 countries. It employs another 77,000. It has nearly 16,000 corps (churches) and outposts in the United States, including 44 corps in the 28 counties that make up the Western Pennsylvania Division, headquartered in downtown Pittsburgh at 424 Third Ave.

The Army has come a long way in America, which saw its first Salvationists in 1880, when eight landed in New York City from England.

Last year (1996) in the United States alone it raised $1.01 billion, all but about 10 percent from private sources. Nearly 90 percent of that billion was spent fulfilling the Army's mission.

This kind of efficiency has earned high praise from no less than Peter Drucker, the world-renowned management guru. He calls the Salvation Army the most effective charitable organization in the United States — a private nonprofit social agency that no one can touch when it comes "to clarity of mission, ability to innovate, measurable results, dedication and putting money to maximum use."

Drucker's a conservative who naturally favors the private sector over the government when it comes to social work. But three Christmases ago, the Salvation Army got a rave review from a less predictable source — The New Republic, a liberal political-think magazine not known as a philosophical soul mate of Christian churches or what the magazine would term their spiritually contaminated social works.

In a piece headlined, "Why Liberals Should Love the Salvation Army," Sallie Tisdale wrote: "They preach and pray about the suffering of the world, but most of all, what Salvationists do in the face of suffering is act."

Variety of causes

In Allegheny County, the Army's multitude of social programs include high-profile ones like Project Bundle Up and the Angel Tree campaign, which will give 25,000 needy children free toys this Christmas.

Less well-known programs include the apartment-like family crisis center in the upper floors of the divisional headquarters building in downtown Pittsburgh, which provides free living quarters, counseling and medical care for families that have been victims of eviction, abuse, fire or violence.

Another unsung but priceless gift to the community that the Army never stops giving is the Adult Rehabilitation Center, a work-therapy program on the South Side for chemically dependent men.

Supported entirely by revenues generated by sales of used clothing in the Army's chain of 10 thrift stores, it is in effect a large business enterprise fueled mostly by old clothes.

It employs 100, operates 15 trucks and keeps 89 problem men safe, sober, off the streets and, ideally, on the road to recovery.

The residents of the ARC, which receives no money from the government or any other source, live in a dorm-like situation. For free, they receive lodging, nutritious meals, clothing, counseling, job training, medical services and what Salvation Army public relations material calls "spiritual enrichment."

There are three catches, however. While living at the ARC, the men , must remain drug- and alcohol-free. At the front desk, everyone (resident and visitor alike) is logged in and administered a Breathalyzer test. No one testing positive is allowed in.

The men must work five eight-hour days processing the 5 million pounds of clothes and other donated items. And they are required to attend Sunday and Wednesday evening services at the ARC.

In theory, the rehab program, which served about 470 men last year, lasts for six months. But many men stay up to a year before they are encouraged to go back into society, said Lt. Ray Bruder, who with his wife, Lt. Jeane Bruder, is stationed at the ARC.

Bruder, 37, is the ARC'S second-in-command. Giving a tour of his facility on a Saturday morning, he seems more like a bouncer or a no-nonsense border guard than a trained minister who preaches one Sunday a month in ARC's chapel.

He is serious and offers little detail about the circumstances of his own career before age 28, saying only that he had a small retail business and "came to the Salvation Army because of some problems in my life."

A native of New Jersey, he joined the Army first as a volunteer, then an employee, in Wilkes-Barre. He entered the seminary in 1994, where he met his wife. Pittsburgh is his first assignment, and he expects to be given an ARC of his own somewhere in June.

Like all Army couples, he and his wife live in an Army-owned home (in Mt Lebanon) and together earn about $500 every two weeks, which is standard Army pay for their rank.

Like many in today's Army, the Bruders are second-career people. He said he had devoted his life to this work "because this is what the Lord wants me to do. When I sought help for my problems and got steered to the Lord, I found out my path."

Bruder, who was raised Methodist, measures success much differently than most people of his generation. It has nothing to do with material or monetary things. It's primarily spiritual, providing help for those who come to the ARC seeking it — people who are usually in a very disturbed condition, and have "basically hit bottom."

"I do it for one guy," Bruder said. "I don't know who he is. But if one guy out of 89 here is able to realize his potential in life — if a guy leaves here with some self-respect and knowledge of Christ, that's a success. The things others take for granted — housing and a steady job — are big things in their lives."

Bruder said he and the Salvation Army today were basically doing the same thing their founder William Booth did. "He rented a warehouse in London and put in some cots and preached to people. We really haven't changed much in 132 years.

"This is a church. The ultimate goal is to lead these men to Jesus Christ. Everything else is a means toward that goal.

Christmas is a critical time of the year

Celestin Nkounkou's kettle is one of about 100 stationed this season at malls and stores across Allegheny County through the end of December.

Places such as Ross Park Mall and Hills department stores welcome the kettles, which they consider a warm and familiar sight and sound of Christmas.

But other malls and retailers prohibit kettles entirely or admit them only as long as there is no bell-ringing or instrument-playing, Salvation Army marketing man Gene Phillips said.

Phillips works in downtown Pittsburgh at the administrative center for the county's 24 corps, outposts and service units. Each Corps (church) has its own budget, which it spends pretty much the way its officers want, depending on their own needs.

The Salvation Army's county budget in 1996 was $11.4 million, half of which came from trusts and foundations and 30 percent from kettles and six direct mailings over the year. About 11.5 percent came via United Way and another 8.5 percent from government fees and grants.

Phillips said the kettles were an important part of the Salvation Army's financial picture. The six-week Christmas fund-raising campaign, which hopes to raise $1.6 million in the county this year, is the most critical time of the year for the Army, Phillips said, because demand for its services is highest.

About 25 percent to 30 percent of that $1.6 million in Christimas fund raising must come from kettles like the one Nkounkou is tending.

Ten percent of what Nkounkou collects will be sent Downtown. The rest he will keep for his Westside Corps for such programs as drug-abuse counseling and helping the poor pay their utility bills to running a computer training class for kids and adults.

Nkounkou, who believes "you can’t change the world but you can change one person," met his wife in the French Congo. She was a lay missionary for the Army and her parents are Salvation Army officers. So are Nkounkou's parents. So was his grandfather.

In 1989, the couple moved to America, where Nkounkou got a computer job in the defense industry. He soon decided he'd rather spend his life's work helping people, not helping to destroy them.

The couple, who have four children under 9 and live in Kennedy township, decided to enter the seminary together (Army rules require that both spouses must become officers). Pittsburgh is their first assignment.

Nkounkou, 36, said most of the people his Westside Corps serves were on welfare and 75 percent were single mothers. His corps' annual budget is $213,000 and his Christmas goal is $50,000, most of which will come from mailings. He has plenty of places to place his 15 kettles, but enough volunteers to man 10 of them.

About 50 to 60 people a week eat at the corps' Sunday dinners. About 600 families — 1,000 total children — will receive free Christmas toys. Another 500 children will get $50 clothing vouchers courtesy of Project Bundle Up.

On a recent day Nkounkou — who had been up at 6 a.m. doing office duties and would work until 10 p.m. — was working a typical day. At 4 p.m., before driving to pick up volunteers who'll stand kettle during the night shift, he packed up his kettle stand and put his trombone away.

In five hours of frigid kettle standing, he had raised $140 — which put him a little closer to hiring the teacher he needs for his increasingly popular computer classes.

Low-cost efficiency

Like hundreds of officers-in-training at the Salvation Army seminary north of New York City, Amy Rockwell used to stand kettle on the sidewalks of Manhattan during Christmas time.

Though she was engaging in one of America's most familiar holiday traditions, she was constantly asked by tourists to have her picture taken with them.

“They thought it was so quaint," Rockwell said with a laugh, eyeballing what little there was yet of a Christmas float she was assembling from scratch on the gym floor in the Salvation Army's Washington, Pa., Corps & Community Center.

The float — a live Nativity scene and a Christmas tree connected by a bridge made from a porch railing salvaged from a demolished house — was for a Christmas parade in town that night.

A Salvation Army brass band, a bell-ringer and carolers would ride on the float, which would in turn ride a flatbed truck donated by an Amoco gasoline station and decorated with icicles donated by WalMart.

Thanks to other donations of materials and people's time, the whole public relations project cost the Washington Corps less than $100. It was a minor but typical bit of low-cost efficiency for the Salvation Army, which has been helping the poor and the needy in Little Washington since Chester A. Arthur was in the White House.

Amy and Mark Rockwell have been the officers/ministers in charge of the Washington Corps on Maiden Street since 1995. In their mid-30s now, they both grew up in the North Hills and went to North Allegheny High School.

They were married and living in Meadville in 1990 when they first learned about the Salvation Army. Mark Rockwell was a branch manager of Ace Auto Glass, earning about $40,000 a year. Amy Rockwell was a housewife who had lots of time to tend to a big back yard abloom with more than 100 perennials. They belonged to the United Church of Christ. Their daughter Rachel was in Catholic school.

Within a year of joining the Salvation Army church and becoming Salvationists, they decided they'd join the seminary. They sold their big restored Victorian house and ' the antiques that nearly filled it. They got rid of just about everything else they owned, including their pets, and spent the next two years living in a seminary dorm room in Suffrin, N.Y.

Washington is the Rockwells' first assignment and Amy Rockwell said "it's been an adventure. It's been all we expected and more." ' In 2 1/2 years of 12- and 14-hour workdays, they've never stopped being busy — whether its mounting six direct-mail fund-raisers a year or running 20 social programs that include a nightly soup kitchen, a food pantry and a toy drive that will provide toys to 1,200 needy children.

As a couple, the Rockwells receive what all officers of their rank with one child receive.

They live for free in a Salvation Army-owned house and have use of an Army-owned, 15-passenger van. If you count salary and taxable benefits, which the IRS insists they do, the Rockwells live on $24,000 a year.

Mark Rockwell does most of the day-to-day administrative work, but he's been known to take his tuba out to a mall and stand kettle. Unlike many other corps, including his friend Nkounkou's corps, his is blessed with as many volunteers as it can use.

His paid employees include a custodian, a social worker, and part-time bookkeeper Chuck Black, a non-church member who's back on the payroll now but worked for free for a year when Rockwell had to lay him off two years ago.

"The lieutenant and I are workaholics," said Amy Rockwell, who oversees church-related activities and "puts out fires" while Mark Rockwell does the paperwork.

"Ideally, what you want to do is empower lay leaders and we do that. And then we go out and find more work for ourselves. Then we do more delegating and go out and find '' more work to do."

Mark Rockwell acknowledged that in this country, the Army is much better known for its social works than a church. But he considers his first responsibility "to be a pastor of this congregation." That means preaching at services Sunday and ministering to the spiritual needs of the 100 families that belong to his church.

To Mark Rockwell, why he does what he does is simple.

"I believe it was a calling from God to be used in this capacity," he said quietly as Amy Rockwell and volunteer Don Newman, 21, wonder how they'll attach the icicles to their Christmas float. "That's how it started. It's a fun job now. It's a challenge, too. It's neat to see how God works in the lives of so many people."