Photo by ragesoss.

Following Giant’s bah humbug decision to severely limit the Salvation Army’s Red Kettle bell ringers time outside of their grocery stores, the charity has seen a significant drop in donations this holiday season. Salvation Army spokesperson Ken Forsythe says bell ringers raised $270,000 this year compared to $667,000 last year. Yup, that’s a 59.5 percent drop.

Giant said they decided to limit the charity’s time outside of their stores to allow for more charities to solicit donations. The grocery chain’s policy only allows one charity at a time to solicit outside of their stores. However, this is different from the story they were telling in November, when they said they decided to limit the Salvation Army’s time so as to not disturb their customers.

Following the depressed numbers of the bell ringer campaign, the Salvation Army National Capital Area Command came up $400,000 short of its $1.6 million fundraising goal. Forsythe even said that the Salvation Army may consider cutting the Red Kettle program in the D.C. area after its lackluster results this year. I don’t shop regularly at Giant, but I still didn’t see any bell ringers in the D.C. area this holiday season. However, I’m sure I’m not the only one that equates the holiday season with the Salvation Army Red Kettle, and it would be sad to see them go because it wasn’t worth the effort.