MINI RED DONATION KETTLES decorated tables in the Faribault Lutheran School gym, site of the annual Rice County Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign Kickoff on Sunday, November 16. I was among the many who showed up to support this faith-based social services organization serving people in need. It is a non-profit that takes the biblical words, “Love your neighbor,” and puts them into action.
Via this kickoff event and also from donations received throughout the holiday bell-ringing campaign and into 2026, the county chapter aims to raise $100,000. Those monies will provide assistance for food, clothing, housing, travel expenses and more in addition to emergency aid for those in need and/or during a natural disaster. If the goal is reached, $88,000 stays in the county with the rest going to the larger Salvation Army organization for administrative costs.
The all volunteer-run county chapter works with the Community Action Center, Three Rivers Community Action and Rice County to provide assistance. The organization does a lot with housing and helping the homeless, according to local board members who spoke.
Additionally, Rice County’s Salvation Army unit offers a shoe program for school-age children, free camping adventures and Shop-with-a-Cop providing free winter gear to eligible elementary school students. Personal care items are also given to local organizations offering meal programs. All of these require lots of dollars and the need is anticipated to grow.
At Sunday’s event, donations flowed as county chapter secretary Rose Marraccini encouraged the crowd to give to their neighbors. “Do what you can with what you have where you are at.” I like that simple, clear directive recognizing that some can give more than others, but that every gift helps no matter how big or small.
Atop each tabletop red kettle, a thank you message read, “Gratitude is the music of the heart, when its chords are swept by the breeze of kindness.”
Music by the Old Country Boys was part of Sunday’s fundraising event. From Simon & Garfunkel to Johnny Cash, the tunes created a fun and relaxing vibe as folks visited and enjoyed complimentary slices of homemade pie purchased from and made by the Trinity Piemakers.
Later, whole pies were auctioned off. An apple pie fetched a winning $100 bid. A peach pie got $55. Strawberry-rhubarb, Dutch apple and cherry got $50 bids. On and on the bidding went of blueberry, apple-cranberry and more with all monies going to the Salvation Army.
And then the basket raffle, with items donated by businesses and individuals, raised even more funds to help our neighbors in need in Rice County. Strings of tickets covered tables and even flowed onto the floor as donors compared the numbers on their tickets to the winning numbers called. My hopes of winning a one-hour massage did not come to fruition. Randy and I won nothing.
But in a way we did. We, like others attending, won by giving. We experienced the satisfaction which comes in knowing that, in some small way, our monetary contributions will help our neighbors in need. Thus far in 2025, the local Salvation Army unit has assisted 274 Rice County families in crisis.
In reality, we are all only a crisis away from needing help. And that’s important to remember as we go about our daily lives while some of our neighbors struggle just to put food on the table.
FYI: Volunteers are still needed to ring bells during the holiday season. Sign up at RegisterToRing.com. A local office with a social worker is based at 617 Third Avenue Northwest in Faribault.
Additionally, there’s another opportunity to “love your neighbor.” Little Prairie United Methodist Church, 2980 130th St. E., rural Dundas, is hosting a Fall Ham Dinner from 4-8 pm Saturday, November 22. All profits will go equally to the Community Action Center food shelves in Faribault and Northfield. The Masonic Lodge of Northfield is matching donations to the CAC at this event, up to $10,000. For details on the dinner, click here.
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
“Love your neighbor,” Part I from Northfield November 17, 2025
Tags: Adan Nunez Gonzalez, Bridge Square, candlelight prayer vigil, commentary, faith, ICE detainee, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, injustice, Minnesota, neighbors, news, Northfield, prayer, Scripture, the bible
MY SUNDAY BEGAN as most Sundays do with morning worship at my church. The sermon highlighted sections of Mark 12, which includes this verse: Love your neighbor as yourself. That would theme the rest of my day.
Hours later I found myself gathered with others for the annual Rice County Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign Kickoff. Again, the focus was on neighbors, specifically helping our neighbors in need.
Shortly after that event, Randy and I were on the road to neighboring Northfield for a 5 pm candlelight prayer vigil at Bridge Square. That, too, was about loving our neighbors. This time the gathering focused on supporting the family of Adan Nunez Gonzalez, a 41-year-old father of four snatched by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at gunpoint on November 11 in a residential neighborhood of Northfield. That incident has sparked outrage in this southern Minnesota college town and beyond.
Several family members and others witnessed Nunez Gonzalez being pulled from the passenger side of a vehicle while he was arriving at a job site along Washington Street. He’s a painter, originally from Mexico, with reportedly no criminal record who has been living in the US for 11 years. The entire incident was captured on video by his teenage son, called to the scene, and has been widely-circulated on social media. Nunez Gonzalez is now being held in the Kandiyohi County Jail. That county is among eight in Minnesota assisting with various aspects of ICE enforcement efforts. My county of Rice is not among them.
HEAVY, YET HOPEFUL, HEARTS
The mood at Sunday’s prayer vigil felt heavy, yet hopeful, as some 200 of us gathered in the town square for this event organized by the Northfield faith community. As the sun set, as the nearby Cannon River roared over the dam, candles were distributed, lit and the crowd pressed together around a monument honoring Civil War soldiers. In late September, football players from Carleton College, blocks away, met here to turn the eagle atop the monument toward their college after defeating across-town rival St. Olaf College. It’s an annual celebratory tradition for the winning team.
Bridge Square has long been a community gathering spot, a place to celebrate, to peacefully protest, to meet one another for local events.
On this mid-November evening, it felt right and necessary to be here. To pray. To sing. To hear scripture quoted. To contemplate the gravity of ICE actions that have traumatized, torn families apart, instilled fear in communities across the country, raised the ire and concerns of many Americans like me who care about our neighbors and how they are being unjustly treated. Taken by armed, masked ICE agents and Border Patrol. Confined. Deported. Without due process of law.
A COMMUNITY RESPONDS
I felt the unity of a community determined to raise their voices and to take action. Northfielders have fed the family of their detained neighbor, organized activities for his children, started a GoFundMe to cover legal and other expenses, emailed support, expressed outrage and much more.
Love your neighbor as yourself was emphasized by clergy leading the vigil. One after another they stepped up to the mic, the first pastor leading us in The Lord’s Prayer. One referenced the biblical parable of the mustard seed and how we are to plant seeds of hope, faith, advocacy that will grow sturdy and strong among us. Another spoke of Jesus and his family fleeing to Egypt after his birth following threats from King Herod to find and kill all first-born males. It was fitting.
A BIBLICAL DIRECTIVE
And then there was the well-known scripture from Matthew 25 in which Jesus asks us to care for one another—when hungry or thirsty, in need of clothing, when sick and in prison. It is as strong a directive as any in the bible to love our neighbors and to show that love in kind, caring and compassionate action.
The 25-minute Sunday evening prayer vigil closed with singing of “This Little Light of Mine.” Voices rose clear and strong in the darkness, arms stretched high, each hand grasping a single candle. A light. Many candles shining lights of support, hope, protest, resistance, outrage and more in a community that cares deeply about its neighbors.
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NOTE: Please check back for a second “Love your neighbor” post, this one on the Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign Kickoff. Also, note that the vigil images in this post were taken with my smartphone, thus the quality is not great compared with pix I would have taken with my 35 mm Canon. I left that at home, opting to be in the moment.
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling