Salvation Army hands out Angel Tree gifts by the bagful
Published: December 21, 2005
Trash bags for Christmas?
A casual glance inside the old storefront, and you might have thought it was a room full of refuse, some tossed tinsel scattered about.
But closer examination revealed the hundreds of black trash bags were interspersed with “bright paper packages tied up with string” - and more than a few bikes and other child things.
The Salvation Army of Kingsport began distribution Tuesday of “Angel Tree” children’s gifts, a process scheduled to continue today. It is the culmination of a yearlong program that allows donors to provide gifts to more than 2,000 children and elderly people across the region. Gifts for the elderly were distributed last week.
Donors pick “angels” from trees set up in local businesses, “adopt” them, and bring gifts to the Salvation Army, which in turn passes the gifts to the child’s parent or guardian.
Most people bring gifts already wrapped, and more often than not, this year each child’s gifts were kept together by being placed in a large trash bag.
As distribution got under way early Tuesday, the floor of a former drugstore off Fort Henry Drive was wall-to-wall trash bags, bikes and gift-wrapped packages.
When Salvation Army staff and volunteer helpers arrived before 8 a.m., people were waiting in a line outside.
By midafternoon, the old store’s floor space was about half vacant.
That’s right on schedule for the Salvation Army’s distribution plan.
Recipients are notified by mail of which day and what time of day to pick up their children’s gifts. They’re scheduled alphabetically: A-L on Tuesday, M-Z today.
All the angels were adopted from this year’s Kingsport-based program, which provides assistance to residents of Sullivan and Hawkins counties in Tennessee and Scott, Wise and Lee counties in Virginia.
But gifts were not returned for about 20 of those angels, Salvation Army staff said.
The Salvation Army will provide gifts for those angels.
The U.S. Marine Corps Toys for Tots also provides toys from its local campaigns for distribution through the Salvation Army. This year the “Toys for Tots” contribution included 140 bicycles. Many more were purchased by individuals or groups.
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: