The Salvation Army Service Unit in Hamburg has been referred to as one of the area’s “best kept secrets.”
Regional manager, Jean Yurkonis, wants area residents to know that “this service unit is thriving with meeting the needs of the community. It’s a constant flow of people. Food is still a problem. There are homeless… in Hamburg.”
Ninety percent of donation money stays in the local area, and the small part-time staff of Cathy Correll and Deb Faust, along with Yurkonis, strive to be “good stewards” of the donations.
As a faith-based organization, The Salvation Army partners with county food pantries and local churches, including through the Community Assistance Fund of the Northern Berks Ministerium. The partnerships, along with donation money, help cover the needs of eligible residents in a wide-ranging sector of Berks County in regard to fuel, food, rent, utilities, furniture, clothing, and other necessities of daily living.
Although these services are available and orchestrated by the Hamburg staff to help with immediate need, staff members feel that it is crucial to break the cycle by helping recipients of aid to become independent.
Staff stated, “it’s not only helping people, but there comes a point… We need to help them become self-sufficient.”
To that end, recipients of services are provided with referrals for financial counseling to learn budgeting and good financial planning strategies. Utility assistance is made available through programs by Met Ed and UGI where people who meet eligibility requirements can receive reduced rates as well as help catching up with overdue accounts.
The Hamburg Service Unit runs multiple programs out of their office at 700 S. 4th Street, sharing the same shopping area as Dollar General and Yarns R Us.
Camp Ladore is a week-long camping experience in the Poconos for children ages 7-12 whose families have been served by the Salvation Army or are referred by their schools. Forty-two children were sent to Camp Ladore out of the Hamburg Service Unit in 2013-2014 at no cost to their families and received training in outdoor activities, animal care, sports, but more importantly were helped with social issues such as friendship, cooperation, and trust.
Cathy Correll was the coordinator for the 2014 Back to School Shopping Program out of The Salvation Army Hamburg location. Children served by this program range from kindergarten to twelfth grade and are either identified by their school or are from a family who is already served by The Salvation Army. Families received a strict shopping list that outlined merchandise permitted to be purchased with $100 supplied by the agency on a shopping day that is supervised by Correll and volunteers. Correll described how heartwarming it is to see children with new school clothing and shoes who may have gone without.
The 2014 program provided 90 local children with a positive start to the school year.
Christmas is a busy time for The Salvation Army. Everyone is familiar with the bell ringers collecting donation money for The Salvation Army at local establishments. Not everyone knows that the money received in the kettles, along with other donations, provides the bulk of the money used by the agency.
At the same time that the bell ringers are using the kettles, the Angel Tree tickets are available at more than 30 area business and churches. People who sponsor the recipients of gifts through the Angel Trees receive information about the recipients’ wants and needs, with all gifts ending up at a huge distribution point at the Hamburg Field House.
Christmas 2014 was a brighter holiday for the 74 senior citizens and 349 children who were given gifts through Angel Tree donations. Christmas also brought food drives through The Salvation Army out of the Perry, Tilden, and Hamburg Area Middle Schools, and $10 food vouchers for meat were also available for eligible residents.
In total, more than 2,000 people received some kind of holiday assistance due to the work of The Salvation Army Hamburg Service Center.
Michelle Kline, of Hamburg, expressed her surprise at this number while shopping in the Dollar General store, only two doors away from The Salvation Army offices. Kline said, “I’d be surprised to know there were two thousand people who needed help!”
More help is needed to continue the efforts of the staff and volunteers at The Salvation Army Hamburg Service Center. Yurkonis explained that more volunteers are always needed for the Red Kettle program to ring bells and collect funds during the Christmas holiday and stated that it is a good project for scout troops or other organizations for community outreach. Twenty-seven big kettles and 34 indoor counter kettles were used in 2014, with more big kettles for outdoor use on their way. Yurkonkis also described how any church, business, or organization can do a fundraising event and direct the proceeds to the Hamburg Service Center.
The Service Center is also in the planning stages of stocking an emergency pantry consisting of non-perishable food, paper supplies, and personal hygiene products. This program is intended to cover an emergency situation for a resident or family lasting only a day or two until other plans can be put in place. More information about future needs for the emergency pantry will follow out of the Hamburg Service Center.
Any monetary donations are always welcome and needed and can be made directly to The Salvation Army Hamburg Service Center. As Jean Yurkonis stated, “these are the needs that still exist. There are people who are hungry. There are people who are homeless.”
For more information about any of The Salvation Army programs, contact Cathy Correll, caseworker, 610-562-8440, or ccorrell@use.salvationarmy.org.
