Christmas in September

Almost as magical as Santa himself, a cold barren exhibit hall transforms into a warm, festive holiday haven. Each year, the magic of Festival of Trees unfolds, and with it the hope and future of children in need at Primary Children's Medical Center.

The Festival of Trees was inspired 39 years ago by a group of 15 women from along the Wasatch Front. These women were challenged to identify a way to raise funds for the hospital.

That project was inspired after a vacation in Hawaii and a Christmas boutique featuring small, decorated Christmas trees, centerpieces, and Christmas decorations. The Women expanded the concept to include full-sized decorated Christmas trees, a gift boutique, and a sweet shop.
That first year, there were approximately 60 trees for display and sale in the gymnasium of an old Armory. To everyone's surprise and delight, $47,000 was raised!
Over the years, this beautiful event has blossomed into a forest of more than 800 trees, a gift boutique featuring handmade articles, a sweet shop filled with freshly made candies and baked goods, a display of wreaths and door decorations, centerpieces, gingerbread houses, and backyard playhouses. There is also Santa, activities for children, hot scones and sweet rolls, and continuous live entertainment. In all, the Festival spans over 220,000 square feet of display space. Perhaps the greatest phenomenon of all is that everything is donated. The trees are decorated and purchased by individuals, families, organizations, businesses, and church groups. In addition, others generously donate items to fill the shops. Businesses provide the paper and printing of posters and tickets. Corporations offer their covered trucks and drivers to help deliver the trees, and so much more! Thousands of people join efforts by contributing countless hours and means to give “A Gift of Love" to children in need. In 2008, the Festival raised $1,495,840.74 for children in need at Primary Children's Medical Center.

Over the years, Festival of Trees has been copied many times throughout the United States and Canada. However, the Salt Lake City Festival of Trees remains the "granddaddy" of them all.

Two weeks ago our service group helped contribute to this wonderful event by learning to make (10) these wreaths for the festival this year thanks to the generous help of Kathie, Val and Jay. We had a great time and learned a new skill too. Now we can't wait to actually go to this event to see the other wreaths, trees and other things that will be there for sale!

Service Group Summer Projects

Service Group Update

Summer has been busy for our 10 Club Service Group. We meet once a month for a 2 hour service project which has been planned by one of the members. It provides a time for wonderful fellowship and at the same time we are giving service to our community. We have a great time. It is called the 10 club because we each contribute $10.00 each month. This money is used for the next month's project. Some months our project does not involve any money so that money is added to the following month's reserve. It is simple, and it works for us.
In May we sorted donated pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies for a company which packages them and sends them to needed places in the US and third world countries. Our efforts that day were being sent to Florida. We sorted through 2 pallets which were dumped onto this long table.In June we assembled 35 activity kits for children whose stay in a local hospital will be long term.
Some of the items were coloring books, foam shapes, card games, crayons, markers, stickers, play doh, die cuts, little figurines,
and each one had a stuffed animal on top. There were boxes for boys and girls. We labeled each and tied each one with a ribbon. They were later delivered to the hospital which was amazed at all the items we were able to put into each box.
JulyIn July we began with a lovely brunch at one of our member's home.
Then we went to the state capitol building where we cleaned the very tall (11') statues.
We also secured many framed pictures on the walls with museum tape.We worked on two floors.
Then we were treated to our very own private tour of the capitol by one of our members who is a docent there. We walked the halls where history was made, saw the court chambers and heard the history of the building. It was a very productive and informative morning.
August
We assembled 240 sandwiches--peanut butter and jelly, (some of us had forgotten how to make these!)
We also made turkey and cheese and ham with cheese.The sandwiches were each put into a zip lock bag then all were put back into the bread wrapper.
These were taken that same day to a local homeless shelter where they were gladly accepted and immediately provided to men, women, and children who were appreciative of a sandwich meal.
It has been a productive summer in this sense. Just 2 hours a month can make a difference!

I hope your summer is going well too.