Christmas Kettling: The Tradition Paying It Forward

The Salvation Army’s Christmas Kettling is one of the oldest, continuous fundraising traditions in the world, beginning in San Francisco in 1891 when a Salvation Army officer set a crab pot on a busy pier with a simple invitation written above it: “Keep the pot boiling”. He was trying to feed a thousand people a Christmas dinner, and he had no money to do it. The pot worked, and within a few years the idea crossed the United States, before it crossed oceans and reached our shores. In Singapore, the red kettle has been part of the festive landscape for generations.

Last Christmas, our iconic red kettles appeared at malls and public spaces across the island, including Century Square and Parkway Parade, manned in shifts by volunteers who offered their time to ring the bells and raise vital funds for the vulnerable lives in our community.

The campaign set a fundraising goal of S$350,000, with the public invited to give in multiple ways; cash donations or registering as volunteer bell-ringers to spread festive cheer. The campaign was a testament to the generosity of Singaporeans and the enduring spirit of giving that the iconic red kettle has come to symbolise.

Every dollar collected goes to work across the year that follows – It becomes a safe bed and a trauma-informed care plan for a child who cannot go home, it becomes a weekly session where an isolated elderly finds conversation and company, it becomes basic necessities met for a desistor trying to reintegrate back into society after incarceration, it becomes physiotherapy for a migrant worker waiting out an injury claim far from his family.