Prince George, B.C. – The Prince George Salvation Army kettle campaign is in full swing minus its most lucrative location.

In a break with previous years Costco is only allowing a kettle at their store beginning December 10.

Bill Glasgow, business manager with the Prince George Salvation Army – photo 250News

“In past years, the directive from Costco regional office was that we had certain weeks or a couple of weeks of the campaign to have our kettles in there,” says Bill Glasgow, business manager with the Salvation Army.

“From what I’ve understood the managers were allowed to have some leeway in that process and we were lucky enough to be allowed in there for the full six weeks of the campaign. But unfortunately, this year that’s changed and all stores have been asked to toe the company line which is we get two weeks from the 10^th of December to the 24^th of December.”

He says that’s disappointing considering over the past five years the Costco location has accounted for 20 per cent of their total fundraising efforts.

Glasgow attributes the success there to the high amount of traffic the store gets.

“And people tend to spend a lot of money there. People walk in there knowing they’re going to spend $200 and its non-stop traffic. It is a bit of a downfall for us. We were saddened by that decision but we have to be thankful we have some time there.”

But despite the change he says they’ve managed to keep pace with last year’s fundraising totals so far.

“What we’ve been able to do is divert the volunteers that usually ask to go to Costco to other locations. So, if you take 12 spots a day for four weeks and divert that to other locations that’s how we’ve been able to keep going,” says Glasgow.

“We’re running a 95 to 100 per cent full schedule. There have been some cancellations but we’ve been able to get them filled within an hour of them cancelling. So, we’ve been very lucky with that.”

250News reached out to Costco to participate in this story but haven’t received a response.