The week before Christmas, Salvation Army volunteers rolled carts out of the back door of an old Kmart building in Virginia Beach.
The big bags were full of presents, placed into the trunk of a car.
“It seems like our volunteers are upbeat even though the clients aren't coming into the space and they're not able to really interact,” said Major Donald Dohmann, leader of the Hampton Roads Salvation Army. “Some of our volunteers missed that.”
In normal years, families who need help with Christmas come into the Kmart — or other large building the Salvation Army sets up in — and walk with a volunteer around a maze of pallets of toys and bins of clothes. They pick out a certain number of gifts for their children and are on their way.
But this year, that just wasn’t safe. And it wasn’t clear if the Salvation Army would even have enough volunteers to do that, Dohmann said.
Organizations that provide services for people experiencing homelessness or economic instability rely heavily on volunteers — a setup that’s been impacted by COVID-19 restrictions.
Virginia Beach Sen. Bill DeSteph raised the issue in November, as the Judeo Christian Outreach Center planned its annual Thanksgiving dinner.
“The moment volunteers begin serving dinner, those in need will begin arriving and lining up to receive these meals,” DeSteph wrote in a letter to Gov. Ralph Northam in November. “Per your Executive Order, this places people in jeopardy of being arrested and subjected to up to a year in jail and/or $2500 fine for simply gathering to be fed. This seems punitive for an already disadvantaged population.”
At the Salvation Army’s Christmas depot, volunteers had to work in shifts to follow current state group restrictions. Twenty people worked a morning shift and twenty more came in the afternoon.
Most years, local companies send dozens of people to volunteer on one day. And local military installations send sailors and Marines to help, too.
Dohmann said they knew there would be fewer volunteers this year, so they started making changes to the Christmas distribution challenge in the summer.
Families could sign up for help online, and donors to the Angel Tree could do so online.
Canceling the Christmas program wasn’t an option, Dohmann said. People have lost jobs, kids don't get to school and people are losing their livelihood, he said.
"Even though everything else may seem chaotic around us, there's still Christmas there," he said.
The Salvation Army’s Christmas program sent gifts to more than 6,000 children in Hampton Roads this year.
