It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas on Hub streets as Salvation Army soldiers, responding to skyrocketing demands from recession-ravaged families, began ringing bells this week in the earliest recorded start of the charity’s holiday fund-raising drive.

“In my 40 years as a Salvation Army officer, this is the earliest I have ever known Salvation Army kettles being out on the streets,” said Major William Bode, the organization’s state commander. “We have not seen a need this great.”

Bode said hard economic times forced the charity to kick-start its kettle drive 10 days before its ceremonial kick-off in Downtown Crossing on Thursday. Beginning last Monday it set up 15 kettles throughout Boston manned by 23 bell-ringers. Some are volunteers while others are like Carlos Quinonez, 51, of Dorchester, who gets by collecting cans and Social Security. “I’m glad to finally have some work,” he said.

Salvation Army community relations director Tom Langdon said its Boston corps is screening 42 others to “stand the kettles,” a job that pays $8 an hour. “One of the gentlemen has 20 years in the Coast Guard and can’t find work,” he said.

With state unemployment at 9.3 percent - the highest rate since 1976 - the charity has seen a 27 percent increase statewide in requests for food, clothing and assistance for rent and heat. Bode said requests for Thanksgiving turkey baskets have also shot up by as much as 50 percent in Fitchburg, 20 percent in Fall River and 17 percent in Cambridge.

“At Thanksgiving I have never known it to be this bad. It will be far worse at Christmas,” said Bode, whose nonprofit operates homeless shelters, recovery programs, food banks and soup kitchens.

The Salvation Army’s South End facility has already exhausted its $6,000 budget for clothing - just a month into its fiscal year, Langdon said, noting, “The need is far outstripping the resources.”

It’s a grim picture repeated at food banks and social service agencies across the city. John Drew, head of the Boston-based anti-poverty agency ABCD, said it has already seen a 20 percent spike this fall in requests for heating assistance with applicants yesterday “lined up down the hallway.”

Millie Arbaje-Thomas, who runs ABCD’s neighborhood center that serves Fenway and Mission Hill, said she now has teachers, executives and “people who used to run banks” coming in to apply for food stamps and take home canned goods from its pantry.

Langdon said he hopes the tough times inspire people to dig a little deeper into their pockets this year as they did last Christmas season, when the Salvation Army saw a 4.2 percent increase in donations over the previous year.