The Salvation Army of Vicksburg’s annual Kettle Drive raised about $62,000 in 2017, Maj. Steve Welch said, adding the amount was $1,000 more than the $61,000 raised in 2016.

“The Kettle Drive is our biggest fundraising program,” he said. “It provides the money to keep the lights on and to have a person available to interview people in need.”

The drive also helps with the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program, which helps hundreds of families annually at Christmas.

“We served 326 children and 106 seniors — adult angels,” Welch said. “That’s more than we served last year. We had a lot of people who helped us this year and we had some organizations collect toys, which helped supplement what we had.”

He said the change in location for the Angel Tree distribution also helped the program.

The Salvation Army Auxiliary in 2017 relocated from River City Tumble and Cheer on Washington Street to the recently vacated Cannon Toyota building.

“We had a good location,” he said. “We didn’t have a traffic jam like we did last year; it went smoothly. We helped a lot of people.”