The Salvation Army Service Center at Hayes has been a busy place recently, director Darlene M. Lee said Monday.

The center will assist approximately 180 families with various Christmas holiday relief, Lee said. "The community has been most generous," Lee said of the army’s efforts to collect for the Toys for Tots and Angel Tree (clothing and other gifts for youngsters through teens) campaigns, as well as other efforts to provide meals for a number of families and a separate initiative to have holiday food and small gifts ready for several dozen senior citizens.

While all of these efforts are underway at the Hayes center, where toy and food pickups were scheduled this week by screened applicants, Lee said another very visible effort is the annual red kettles placed at a number of retail outlets in the community. There, bell ringers are spreading holiday cheer and collecting donations that will be used to support the army’s efforts in 2013.

Because of a lack of bell r...