North Greene Salvation Army disbanding
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By Carmen Ensinger
After 20 years serving the North Greene community, the North Greene chapter of the Salvation Army has officially disbanded.
“We just don’t have enough help anymore to keep our chapter going,” Salvation Army member Karen Meehan said. “There are only three of us members left and we are all having health issues this year and we just can’t keep it going.”
The North Greene chapter was chartered in March of 2001 and back then there was a lot more participation and it was much easier to become a member.
“When we first started our chapter, we had a lot more members, including several local ministers, several members from local banks,” Meehan said. “It was easy to become a member – all you had to do was to come and talk to us, but that has all changed now.”
Unfortunately, as members got older and dropped out, new members never entered the picture.
“We are down to just the three of us now – myself, Beth Burrus and Cathy Hunnicutt,” Meehan said. “I’ve recovered from knee replacement surgery, Cathy has back trouble and can hardly get around anymore and Beth’s husband just had surgery so we are all unable to do it right now.”
Meehan said it is not that they haven’t tried to get new members to take over for them.
“We have been trying for the last couple of years to find people to replace us and for the last six months Cathy has really been trying hard to find someone but no one is interested in doing the job,” she said. “When we started this 20 years ago, it was a volunteer thing. Someone came and talked to us and that was it. Now, you have to have a background check; you have to take classes and I think that is one reason why we can’t get anyone to step up and do it is because it is a big commitment of time.”
The Salvation Army is most visible around this time of year with their bell-ringing campaign. This campaign raises funds for their many people who need assistance.
Meehan said they assist people who need transportation to medical appointments and used to do food vouchers.
“We don’t do them anymore because since Kroger’s closed, there is no longer any food stores in the area who accept them,” she said.
But the biggest thing they did was help with utilities.
“That is where the majority of our funding went,” Meehan said. “Especially in Roodhouse where the utilities are so much higher. We are asking people who still want to donate to help people with their utility bills to donate directly to the city halls in White Hall and Roodhouse and specify their donation is for utility assistance. But we need that more in Roodhouse than we do in White Hall. We get very little request for that in White Hall.”
Anyone who would like to step up and take over and keep the Salvation Army going in North Green can contact Cathy Hunnicutt at 217-490-3148.
