I Feel Privileged to Work on CanTree Year After Year

As a Sacramento REALTOR®, I feel privileged to work on CanTree year after year. I was recently asked why I do so. My inspiration goes back to the first Saturday after Thanksgiving 1994.

A group from our office had committed to The Salvation Army can drive at a local grocery store. It was crisp at 7:00 am to say least. But undaunted we put up our signs, rang the bells and greeted folks as they passed us in the parking lot. We were hopeful we would collect enough food not to embarrass ourselves.

Within the first 15 minutes a gentleman came back out of the store with a bag full of cans. As he placed the bag in our cart he said, “The Salvation Army helped my Mother put food on the table when my father was killed at Pearl Harbor. They really were the only thing we knew we could depend on”. Our group was taken aback, but we composed ourselves and continued ringing our bells.

In the next few minutes another man placed a few cans of yams in the cart. “When I got back from Viet Nam I got addicted and tried to kill myself. The Salvation Army is the reason I am alive. I could not have made it without them.” Once again we were stunned with an unsolicited personal story.

A young man who had run away and found that life on the street was more than tough, recalled that The Army had given him shelter and fed him and eventually helped reunite him with his family, successfully.

This was only the beginning. Young mothers, teenagers, little kids. We must have heard a dozen stories. I made up my mind that day that The Salvation Army was worth supporting!