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Thanks to National Salvation Army Week, more than 800 at-risk kids will enjoy the beauty and fun of a week at Camp Ponderosa Ranch this summer. More than $110,000 was raised during the week–making a lot of happy campers.
“I don’t know of any other city in the West where The Salvation Army does as much of this as it does here,” said Lt. Colonel Olin Hogan, as he explained the scope of National Salvation Army Week in the Valley of the Sun. A golf classic at the Desert Highlands Country Club, open house at all corps community centers, and a family picnic at the BankOne Ballpark, where the Arizona Diamondbacks played the Montreal Expos, were all a part of it.
“This is the first time we’ve had the picnic at the park,” stated Southwest Division Public Relations Director Sandi Gabel, who originated the idea. Four hundred tickets (which included entrance fees and a picnic dinner) were quickly sold out: some were for $40 family picnic baskets and others were for $200 picnics in suites. All the food, Sandi notes, was donated, with Luby’s providing the non-suite baskets, and fine hotels donating the picnics for the suites. All included a thank-you to donors from children who have attended camp.
Greeting baseball fans at the entrance to the park were Salvation Army kettles–painted green for summer giving–and cheerful bell ringers, who explained that funds were being used for camp scholarships. To date, the Army is the only charity that has been allowed to conduct such a fundraiser in the park. “Jerry Coangelo, the owner, has been very supportive of The Salvation Army over the years,” stated Hogan.
