The Salvation Army ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ will be serving its community dinner at the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Convention Center on Christmas day.
The ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Convention Center, located at 260 S. Church Ave., will open its door at 10 a.m. for worship service and will serve dinner from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The event is open to anyone and no advance signup or registration is required.
The Salvation Army said in a news release that they expect to feed about 1,000 people.
Last year, The Salvation Army aided nearly 40,000 ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ area people by providing food for the hungry, shelter and clothing for the homeless, rent and utilities assistance, disaster and heat relief, senior activity and outreach, adult rehabilitation, opportunities for underprivileged children, holiday assistance and emotional and spiritual support, the news release said.
A giant red kettle in Times Square kicked off the Salvation Army's holiday fundraising campaign. Measuring over 7-feet, the aluminum kettle hangs from a 32-foot tall stand. The giant kettle is meant to represent the spike in need seen during the pandemic. "Overnight almost, we saw our food requests double," Major Stewart Dalrymple of the Salvation Army of Greater New York, said. "We went from about 3.5 million people being fed the previous year to 7.4 in the midst of the pandemic last year, and so just a great increase in the need for food." Donations were down last Christmas partly due to a reduced number of kettles deployed during the pandemic. But other factors are weighing on the need.
Jamie Donnelly covers breaking news for the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥. Contact her via e-mail at jdonnelly@tucson.com
