SPOKANE -- The Salvation Army bell ringers bring out the red kettles each Christmas typically to raise money but this year they’ve taken on a new role. They’re also accepting prayer requests now.

They say the Salvation Army has seen an unprecedented need in the community this year and they've had a lot people ask them to pray for them.

It started earlier this fall when the Salvation Army put a prayer request box in their building and received hundreds of requests.

“I was shocked by the need and the intensity of the prayer requests,” Captain Kyle Smith with the Salvation Army said.

Now the Salvation Army wants people to put their prayer requests in here.

“We're accepting donations from the public to help people, but also helping the public if they want someone to pray for them,” Smith said.

There are simple prayers from a kid requesting “a baby brother” to a parent’s request to “pray for my 15 year old son that he gets some sense.” Then there are the prayers with more serious tones.

“Please pray for my family to find a place to live,” Smith says as he reads one of the requests request. In another, a request for a husband to come home while another is from a woman with breast cancer asking for a prayer as she goes through chemotherapy. Some ask for financial miracles, for their spouse to keep a job, others want a brother at war to come home safe.

“I'm the pastor and director of the Salvation Army and I forgot how much need is really out there and how much people just wanna reach out to God,” Smith said.

So every night Kyle Smith and his special prayer team goes through the stacks of requests and they pray.

“If 1,000 people put in prayers or two, we're gonna pray for them ... its as simple as that,” Smith said.

“They just need his help right now and I believe I can give it ... that's why I'm willing to pray.”