At first blush, the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program might seem like a pretty simple affair.
A tree is set up in a high-traffic location and is decorated with little “angel” cards that identify a child by age, gender, clothing sizes and toy preferences. People can choose a card, shop for the child and return the presents to the Salvation Army office.
There’s a lot more to it, however.
Each year in Starkville, Columbus and cities and towns throughout the country, the Salvation Army Angel Tree program represents countless hours of work starting as early as September. The logistics of identifying children, collecting their information, coordinating the program at the sites chosen for the trees, collecting, sorting and arranging the gifts, even supplementing some gifts from their own stock of toys/clothing and arranging for families to pick up their gifts represents is tedious, time-consumer work.
And for the those who coordinate the program for the Salvation Army, it is one other thing:
“It’s the joy of my life,” said Major Cheryl Phillips of the Columbus Salvation Army.
“It’s the neatest thing about my job,” said Katie Walker, service center manager for the Starkville Salvation Army.
Long before Angel Trees begin to pop up at various locations – the two most prominent sites are the Kroger store in Starkville and Leigh Mall in Columbus – the Salvation Army has been at work preparing.
“We set up appointments with families that have signed up and that’s when we’ll do the interviews, checking to see if they meet the eligibility requirements and collecting the information we need for each child,” Walker said. “But you could say it starts even earlier than that because the community service organizations have already started getting the word out and helping identify families that might be eligible.”
Although based in Starkville, Walker’s program serves not only Oktibbeha County, but Choctaw, Webster and Winston counties.
The Columbus Salvation Army includes not only Lowndes County, but Clay, Noxubee and the south part of Monroe County.
The Starkville Salvation Army is partnering this year with the Boys & Girls Club while the Columbus Salvation Army has 22 partners, including businesses, churches and individuals that are serve as Angel Tree locations.
How it works
This year, the Starkville program will provide gift packages for 60 families, while in Columbus, the list includes 182 families and almost 400 children.
Logistics require the trees go up in early November and come down well before Christmas.
“We started on Nov. 9 and ended this past Friday,” Walker said. “The reason for that is that takes some time for those who have chosen an angel to shop, then get what they have bought back to us. At that point, we have to go through the gifts, match it to the child and make sure each child has a good gift bag. Some shoppers may not have the means to buy a lot. So often, we’ll supplement that child’s gift bag with other toys or clothing that has been donated.”
Phillips said in Columbus, they have a “Forgotten Angel,” program, which allows people to donate toys/clothing for any child. The “Forgotten Angel” program also helps when a tag for a child that has been taken but no gifts have been returned.
“That happens every year,” said Phillips. “For whatever reason, a tag is taken but nothing is every brought back. So we use the ‘Forgotten Angel’ program to take care of that issue or maybe add to a child’s gift bag.
“We want everyone to know that whatever they buy for the child they pick, it goes to that child. But some get more than others, and we want to supplement those that maybe didn’t get as much.”
For that reason, Salvation Army officials in both cities encourage people to donate new toys or clothing even after the Angel Trees have been taken down.
‘The neatest part’
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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