Salvation Army Week Came During Tough Times

It’s tough to imagine the 54th annual National Salvation Army Week (NSAW) coming during a worse time in Minnesota and around the world.

Or a better time. It just depends on how you look at it.
 
The May 12 – 18 celebration included statewide and national events, but occurred right when hundreds of thousands of people were dead, missing or homeless in Asia from the Myanmar cyclone and China earthquake. The Salvation Army is serving at both disasters.

Here at home, the timing was also dubious. The week came just after The Salvation Army exhausted its $1.3 million in assistance for survivors of the August 2007 floods in southeastern Minnesota. Many more people still need help. (Click here for more info.)

While all of these circumstances are indeed terrible, Salvation Army Major Daniel Sjögren can still see the good in their timing.

“Salvation Army Week celebrates the work of our selfless staff and volunteers, many of whom are serving amid horrific tragedies in Minnesota and abroad,” said Sjögren, commander of The Salvation Army of Minnesota and North Dakota. “What better time to honor them?”

Volunteers gave nearly 350,000 hours of time last year in Minnesota and North Dakota, cause for celebration during NSAW.

That includes people like 80-year-old Al Materi (pictured) from Bismarck, N.D. As part of NSAW, the Minnesota Twins honored Materi and 24 fellow Army volunteers May 14 at the Metrodome before a game against the Toronto Blue Jays.

Materi, a retired grocery industry worker, began volunteering for the Army’s disaster services program 11 years ago. He has served meals at 10 major disasters nationwide, from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina.

“I used to go to Arizona for my winters, but I haven’t been there for years – (the Army) keeps me too busy,” he said.

Other NSAW events littered the state. A Christian music concert and block party was held in Rochester. On the Iron Range, Virginia-area kids cooked a Mothers Day lunch for their moms and gave them red roses.  
 
In St. Paul, officers (pastors), staff and volunteers from the Payne Ave. Salvation Army went door-to-door serving free coffee and doughnuts to nearby businesses.

“We went to restaurants, churches – even a funeral home,” said Captain Crystal Joyner of the Payne Ave. location, which is celebrating 120 years of service along that street.

In the Fargo/Moorehead area, Salvation Army disaster services coordinator Steve Carbno helped lead a May 13 fund-raising luncheon that yielded a whopping $52,200.

Carbno can sum up the essence of Salvation Army service with a sight he witnessed in 2005 while helping survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

He was serving 5,000 meals a day in New Orleans’ French Quarter, an area famous for its ubiquitous voodoo shops.

“There were incantations being sold on every street corner,” he said. “We were in the trenches.”

A local man approached the Salvation Army officer Carbno was next to. The man badgered the officer about why a loving God would allow such a disaster to happen. 

“The guy asked, ‘Where is your God in all this?’” Carbno recalled. “Without missing a beat, the officer pointed to a Salvation Army volunteer handing out a meal. Then the officer said, ‘There’s my God right there.’”