April 4, 2018 at 5:30 p.m.
Angel Tree program finishes strong
Heidi Forney, secretary at Hope Elementary School, was worried a few weeks ago that not enough people would come forward to buy gifts for children in need during the school's 2016 Angel Tree program.
But those people rose to the occasion, plucking enough tags off the school's office Christmas tree to ensure that all 90-plus registered children would have at least something waiting for them under their own trees.
"I was overjoyed to see all the gifts piled up in the office," Forney said. "Everyone really came through for us."
The Angel Tree program has been tradition at Hope Elementary School, thanks to a partnership with Community Center of Hope and United Way 211 that supplies names from area help organizations. Each holiday season, school personnel put up a tree decorated with ornamental slips and encourage people to come in off the street to take one or more during office hours. By doing so, they commit to purchasing for one of the area's less fortunate children some or all of the wish-list items they specify on the slip.
Each gift was wrapped and returned to the school by Dec. 14, Forney said. School personnel delivered them Wednesday and Thursday to the Community Center.[[In-content Ad]]
