Longtime bell-ringer outside Nordstrom loses his perch as Salvation Army wrestles with image

[brooklynite]

Seattle Times

For 19 years, 85-year-old Dick Clarke has raised money for The Salvation Army during the holiday season — 18 of them ringing a bell beside a red kettle for donations outside Nordstrom’s downtown Seattle store. He loved the conversations and the feeling of giving back through the more than $100,000 he collected. He volunteered five days a week, six hours a day.

“The best thing I like about Thanksgiving is the next day I go to work,” said the retired teacher and principal.

Or that’s how he used to feel. This year, Nordstrom told The Salvation Army it would no longer allow solicitation in front of its doors.

Beyond stating that policy, Nordstrom spokeswoman Jennifer Tice Walker did not answer questions about the change. But Clarke said he was told in a meeting last week with head of stores Jamie Nordstrom that LGBTQ employees said The Salvation Army’s presence made them uncomfortable.

The Salvation Army — an evangelical Christian organization that is one of the world’s largest providers of homeless shelters, food banks, youth programs and other social services — has long had a reputation of being unwelcoming to LGBTQ people. Leaders say their organization, like many religious groups, espouses a theology that sees marriage as between a man and a woman. But they say they do not discriminate when providing services or hiring staffers. The organization has been trying to change its image, in part by setting up a website highlighting services provided to the LGBTQ community, including a Las Vegas shelter for transgender individuals intended as a safe space.

There's a CHIK-FIL-A at 129th & Aurora...

[Grasswire2]

1. This is very unfortunate.

And we've had this discussion recently on DU. I provided my perspective (as an editor) from reading 12,000 letters from prisoners in America to me who often told how SA had provided housing assistance, health care referrals, food, clothing, job training, and other services to them and their families when they had nothing else. SA does not ask questions of anyone needing help regarding sexual orientation or any other matter.

If the organization was not previously overtly working to discourage any discrimination by its employees, it is now. We should encourage that transformation, because the need of needy people is sooooooooooo great.

[Silent3]

2. It's certainly nice if they improve, but for myself I'm not going to give any money...

...to any religious charity when there are plenty of secular charities that I can give to, people who help just to help, and not as a way to proselytize or otherwise promote their own religion.

[dlk]

3. No doubt, the rich are annoyed with being reminded of the less fortunate

It takes all the fun out of their holiday shopping and dropping a bundle at Nordic.

[brooklynite]

4. Do you have a a basis for your assertion that "The Rich" are patronizing Nordstrom?

And are annoyed by the presence of the Salvation Army

[dlk]

7. Actually, I do

Of course, not the ultra-rich, they prefer shopping out of town. Be that as it may, I seem to have struck a nerve and am not interested in any contention. Have a Happy New Year.

[maxsolomon]

5. Did you read the snip?

"Clarke said he was told in a meeting last week with head of stores Jamie Nordstrom that LGBTQ employees said The Salvation Army’s presence made them uncomfortable."

Its the LGBTQ EMPLOYEES who don't want the SA outside their door. Not "the rich".

There's not a person in downtown Seattle, of any economic stripe, who's not reminded of the less-fortunate every time they walk a single city block. A bell-ringer is the least of our worries - there is an open-air heroin and meth market 2 blocks from that store.

[stopdiggin]

6. I think you missed the point of the OP (nt)

[dlk]

8. I was making a different one