In Need Of A Helping Hand

The Salvation Army is having a tough time this holiday season. In addition to being barred from fund raising at Target stores, the charity can't seem to find enough warm bodies to staff its collection kettles. The religious nonprofit, which has had to pay bell ringers in some areas, last week deployed a couple of hundred life-size cardboard figures alongside donation bins with a slot in the shape of a cross. "It's becoming more and more difficult to find volunteers," says Salvation Army spokesman Major George Hood. The group is testing whether electronic jingling and a recorded greeting will have the same wallet-emptying effect on passersby.

Meanwhile, the Salvation Army is still reeling from Target Corp.'s decision earlier this year to ban the group, ending the exemption it had given the charity from the chain's no-solicitation policy (similar to that of many retail chains). "It opens the door to any other groups that wish to solicit our guests," said a Target official. In 2003 bell ringers received $8.8 million from Target shoppers--nearly a tenth of the Salvation Army's total $93.8 million holiday haul. Several Christian groups, including Concerned Women for America and the American Family Association, have protested the ban and are encouraging their members to shop elsewhere. Fears of a boycott led Mervyn's, a former Target subsidiary, to reverse its own ban last week, but so far Target's 1,313-store chain is standing firm with its bah, humbug. --By Jeffrey Ressner. With reporting by Frank Sikora