WASILLA -- A thief took advantage of the generosity of the season and snatched a Salvation Army red kettle full of cash at the Wasilla Wal-mart on Wednesday night.
The bell-ringer had just accepted a donation around 6 p.m. when an unidentified man grabbed the kettle and ran to the adjacent Valley Cinema parking lot, according to Jeff Josephson, a Salvation Army captain who serves as Mat-Su coordinator. A 1990s Dodge pickup was waiting and took off as soon as the thief got there.
The bell-ringer and a worker at a nearby construction site chased the thief but couldn't catch him.
Josephson said the kettle held hundreds of dollars in donations -- everything from bigger bills to dresser-top change.
"This is our one big fundraiser of the year, so we hit it really hard," he said. "This is how we support our community with all the things that we do, all the rental assistance and food and getting people clothing. This is how we responded to the Sockeye Fire and those kind of things."
Wal-mart video surveillance may help identify the kettle grabber, police said.
The Salvation Army contends with the occasional kettle theft around the country. This is the first in Alaska this year, according to spokesman Thomas Brown.
Wasilla police hope to release a photo or some video, said officer Dan Bennett. Otherwise, he had little information about the thief's description.
The Salvation Army put out a new kettle at Wal-mart Thursday.
Josephson said the store plans to help gather donations by having employees serve as bell-ringers all day next Tuesday.
"It is ridiculous," he said. "Alaska is just so generous and they don't have a whole lot of tolerance for this kind of activity here. It just doesn't sit well with folks that work so hard looking after their neighbors."
The Salvation Army is an evangelical Christian organization that works in 18 Alaska communities. In Anchorage, the Salvation Army operates Clitheroe Center, Eagle Crest Transitional Housing, McKinnell House Shelter and Emergency Family Services, Older Alaskans Program and Serendipity Adult Day Care, in addition to two churches, one with services in Korean.