| | 
| -- | | | | Temperature: 42°F / 5.6°C | Humidity: 91% | Pressure: 30.06in / 1018hPa (Steady) | Conditions: Clear | Wind Direction: SW | Wind Speed: 0mph / 0.0km/h |
|
| | | SNOHOMISH |
| |
THANKS TO YOU THE SNOHOMISH GIVING TREE HAS RECORD YEAR
December 16, 2011
A medical clinic in Snohomish, the Snohomish Family Medical Center, a regular advertiser in this journal, also ran ads in the Chronicle promoting the toy donation drive.
But little did we know then that those stories (and from what we hear a lot of you folks read those stories) along with those ads and the combined efforts of numerous individuals, businesses, schools and organizations would be just the right mixture to light a huge fuse that would then ignite the biggest, most successful toy drive ever for the Tree Of Giving program.
But all we did was get the word out. It was you guys that rocked & rolled and kicked out the jams.
“We’ve had people just walking in with one gift after another…just from us alone (at the food bank) getting them in (not counting other collection efforts elsewhere) we got over 1,649 toys and stocking stuffers,” said Elizabeth Grant, Executive Director of the Snohomish Food Bank.
Grant says the Chronicle articles - along with a saturation campaign of ads the medical clinic ran daily in these pages for 25 straight days from Nov. 21 through Dec. 15 promoting a drop off point for toys - helped immensely in getting the community aware and pumped about the project.
“Absolutely,” said Grant. “Last year not every child even got a toy. This year we have even more kids signed up than last year, a total of 502 right now, and we’re thinking the way it’s panning out it’s going to be probably three gifts for every child along with stocking stuffers and on top of that whatever gifts we have left over we are sending to the Senior Center so they can choose gifts for their grandchildren,” added Grant.
She added that Sky Family Medical Center “sent boxes and boxes of new Beanie Babies and all kinds of good stuff like wrapping paper that goes to help.”
MANY FAMILIES BROUGHT IN BAGS AND BAGS OF STUFF
Grant said the amount of donations that came in this year “Is a lot more than ever before…that’s what Tari told me last (Wednesday) night, she said this is going to be the most we’ve ever had.”
Tari Bosley-Dexter, along with her family is the driving force behind the Tree of Giving toys program.
‘I would like to thank the many, many people who called me to say, “We want to be a part of this,” said Grant.
“We’ve had many families who read about it and just brought in bags and bags of stuff for the kids. I think your (Chronicle) story was the only one printed about the drive, I believe. Thank you for helping to promote it. People learned about it much more this year than they did last year.”
She says thank you to so many folks including the local Kiwanis Club and a boy scout troop in Snohomish from Totem Falls elementary where each of 70 scouts picked a young person their age to buy presents for.
And then there are two Snohomish High School clubs, the National Honor Society and ROTC that adopted the Tree Of Giving program four years ago as a community service project.
They collect toys at Snohomish High School and deliver them to be chosen by parents Dec. 16 and 17 at a local fire station. They’ll even wrap the presents for parents if they choose, or parents can take wrapping paper and ribbons home if they’d rather wrap the presents themselves.
And then there is Bickford Ford Mercury in Snohomish.
“Bickford…just took on the whole spirit of the campaign and just really got behind it. Bickford’s contribution alone is going to provide one or two presents per child. Last Friday Bickford's brought me a check for $3,000 and told us to go shopping! So went shopping and ended up buying 370-plus more toys, clothes, games, gift cards…and then Monday here came Kevin Green again (a manager at Bickford’s) and said our employees are so behind this, here’s another $2,000 dollars!”
So Grant said she was headed out Thursday afternoon to pick up even more presents at Kohl’s, Fred Meyer’s and J.C. Penney’s. Grant added that Green, the Sales Manager and another Bickford employee Gordon Simpson, the Parts Manager were very involved in the drive.
PULLING TEETH FROM A GORILLA IN A HURRICANE
But getting someone at the dealership to talk about their contribution is, as one reporter discovered, like trying to pull teeth out of a mountain gorilla’s mouth during a hurricane.
Green was emphatic in saying the dealership did not want to be acknowledged or singled out in any way for any praise, adding that this effort is simply a continuation of a program of giving the dealership does every year at the holidays and it’s all the employees and customers who make it happen, not any individuals at the store.
The difference this year is that rather than doing their own program of gathering gifts and food and distributing them in the community – a program Bickford’s called The Santa Patrol for some ten years - they moved their efforts into supporting the Tree of Giving program because, said Green, they believe that program is able to do so much more with the funds than they could do alone and do it more efficiently.
“We’re soliciting contributions from employees, friends, customers you name it. If they’re willing to write a check to the food bank then we’re willing to match it, up to $10,000 total. It’s a real pleasure for us to provide them with that money because they are able to stretch it and use it very resourcefully to…do above and beyond what we could and buy extra things for the kids,” said Green.
So from local car guys and women to local department and retail stores to high school and elementary school kids to the Kiwanis Club to medical clinics to volunteers everywhere and hundreds and hundreds of individuals and families who gave of their time, talents and money, be it known all of you contributed mightily to a toy drive that turned out to be the biggest one ever in the community and that means a happier Christmas this year for a lot of kids.
So please stand up and give yourselves a decent round of applause whether you want to or not.
Job well done.
Mission accomplished.
tags: snohomish, giving tree, Christmas, donations
| |
|
BACK TO
HOME
| |
|
