Ringing In the Season

Drivers prowled the aisles of Stop and Shop's parking lot searching for the elusive parking space. Inside the store, the impending snow storm had driven end-of-the-world shoppers to stock up on essentials like Doritos, Cherry Garcia and hot wings, and check-out lines stretched into the frozen-food section.

Just outside the door, Bob Binezewski stood in a position much like the one he has stood in for the past ten Christmases. As a Salvation Army bell ringer, Binezewski was warding off the frigid blasts that swept over the parking lot in his direction by vigorously ringing his bell and greeting each entering and departing shopper with a "Merry Christmas."

Some of the shoppers ignored him. Several stopped and placed folding money in the slot in the familiar Salvation Army Kettle.

"People are generous," Bob said. "I think they feel good giving to the poor, and God said to give to the poor."

Some bell ringers are purely volunteer, like the Kiwanis, high school key club members and American Legion members who stood outside of area stores on Saturday. Others, like Bob, trade eight hour shifts in the cold for a small stipend.

"Twenty-five dollars a day," Bob confesses. "But I don't do it for the money. I do it to help people."



A major annual fundraiser for the Salvation Army, this platoon of bell-ringers are in the crucial final days of their effort, and still short of their goal.

"We need to raise twelve to thirteen thousand dollars in the next five days," Salvation Army Captain Rick Starkey explained. "It should be a good day today because so many people are out at the store shopping because of the storm. But tomorrow won't be so good."

Starkey manages and schedules the bell ringers at the six locations covered by the Middletown Salvation Army. And while he confesses that he would love to have enough volunteers to cover each kettle, he relies on a small group of dedicated paid staff to make sure that the bell are ringing and that the kettles are hanging beneath the recognizable tripods.

According to Starkey, the bell-ringing fundraiser goes back 120 years when a Salvation Army captain in San Francisco ran out of food, and took a large black kettle from the kitchen and set it on the street where a bell ringer called attention to their plight.

"It was so successful they did it year after year," Starkey said.

"Today will be cold," Binezewski acknowledged. "But I'm dressed right. Two pairs of socks. Three sweat shirts. A jacket. A shirt. Thermal underwear, gloves and a hat."

"You've got to like people," fellow ringer Berdeen Flowers said. "You have to like to talk to people, and after awhile, they recognize you."

"I raised $750 one day last week," Binezewski said, noting his high for the season. "I wouldn't be surprised if I raised more today. The closer you get to Christmas, the more generous people are."

And this year, Binezewski garners attention with a vintage bell.

"A woman came up to me last week and handed me this bell," he said. "She must have been around 90. She told me she used it when she used to be a ringer. She said, 'I'm passing it on to you, and you can pass it on to someone else.'"