Correction: An anonymous donor has given the Salvation Army in Joplin, Mo., five $10,000 contributions this year and a total of $500,000 in donations over the past eight years. This article reported the wrong amount of money given by the person in Joplin based upon incorrect information provided by a spokesman for the Salvation Army’s national headquarters.

CONWAY - Salvation Army members in Conway are giving extra thanks this Christmas season after a good Samaritan anonymously dropped a South African gold coin into one of the organization’s red kettles.

Someone donated the Krugerrand coin at a kettle outside the food entry at the Wal-Mart Supercenter on Arkansas 65, or Skyline Drive, said Capt. David Robinson, a minister who, with his wife,Joanna, runs the organization in Conway.

Robinson said no one, not even the bell ringer, knows who donated the 1-ounce coin, which bears a picture of Paul Kruger, who was president of the South Africa Republic from 1883 to 1900. What Salvation Army representatives do know is that the coin was dropped into the kettle between 10 a.m. and noon Monday and that it’s worth more than $1,000 in the United States.

Robinson said an ounce of gold was selling Wednesday for $1,260 in the United States. It was $1,238 a day earlier.

“Everybody that has talked to me about it has said, ‘Don’t sell it for any less than $1,300,’” he said.

When he opened the kettle in question earlier this week, he said, “I saw it [the coin] looking right back at me. I saw the Krugerrand, and I just didn’t believe it. … I had heard of them but hadn’t seen one.”

It was the first time to his knowledge that such a coin has been donated to the Salvation Army in Conway, though such donations have turned up elsewhere in the country. Similar coins were left in kettles in Owensboro, Ky., and Tulsa earlier this week, he said.

With Christmas approaching and donations down, the Krugerrand comes at an important time for the Conway Salvation Army, which serves people in Faulkner, Cleburne and Perry counties.

“We are $19,000 behind” last year’s total as of this time last year, Robinson said. The goal this year is to raise $119,000. Last year, the organization raised $118,000 in the three-county area.

“When I set my goal, I forgot that we had five fewer days to ring bells this year,” he said. Then, the ice storm hit the area, keeping many people away from stores where bell ringers stand beside the bright red kettles. So, the coin’s donation “goes a long way” toward helping, he said. “It gives us an added blessing.”

The Conway organization expects to help about 250 families this year and has more than 700 “angels” - children ages 12 and younger, or older children who have disabilities - for whom people buy and donate Christmas gifts through the Salvation Army.

“Pretty much all the angels are out,” Robinson said, meaning that people have volunteered to buy gifts for them. “We’re just waiting on them [the gifts] all to come back in. There will be some that won’t come back.” In those cases, the organization will use money that’s been given to its “angel tree” program to buy gifts for those children.

Robinson said he appreciates the small contributions as much as the big ones.

“I have people that send me $1 a month,” he said. “That one person who took time to send me a dollar, sometimes it just brings tears to my eyes. They’re giving what they can give.

“Whoever donated this coin, we will never know who they are, but we accept their blessings that they’re trying to pass on,” he said.

Nationally, the Salvation Army also has received big and unusual donations in recent years.

“For the past eight years, a generous donor has dropped substantial checks into a red kettle in Joplin, [Mo.],” said Jennifer Byrd, a spokesman for the Salvation Army’s national headquarters. “This [year’s] anonymous donation featured five $100,000 checks for a total of $500,000.”

In Fitchburg Mass., Dean Tran and his family recently made a $2,000 donation in memory of his father.

“When Dean and his siblings were younger, their father received toys for them from the Salvation Army Toy Distribution,” Byrd said in an email. “Since their father passed away recently, they decided to give back for what they received and to teach Dean’s children that it is good to give back to the community where you live.”

In Morris, Ill., an anonymous donor has dropped three American Eagle gold coins into a Salvation Army red kettle for the past 10 years.

Byrd said the organization “is hopeful that donations will be on par with last year.”

“However, with five fewer days to give this holiday, it is more important than ever to be giving back this season,” she said.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/12/2013