GAMBIER — The festive Christmas tree stands before the pulpit in the Church of the Holy Spirit, Harcourt Parish, loaded with colorful tags in the images of tin soldiers and the Sugar Plum Fairy. Each tag, tied with ribbon, bears a family number and a first name, and a description of a gift the family member requested.
The parishioners take a tag from the tree, write their name on the sign-up sheet and shop for the requested gift. They wrap it, remove the back of the double tag bearing the family information, leave the rest of the tag on the gift and place it beneath the tree that the parishioners call their “angel tree.” At the start of the program, the tree had 68 tags, an increase of 50 percent over last year. The church received 10 more names on Tuesday.
The official name is the Tree of Sharing. The Church of the Holy Spirit’s tree — and the many others in place at Knox County churches — is part of the Turn the Tide program, administered by Interchurch Social Services to help needy families get what they need and want for Christmas.
Both children’s and adults’ names are on the tags. Families applied in the fall to participate in the program. Kim Beaver, client aide counselor at ISS, said 231 applications were received and 30 families were “adopted out”; that is businesses, churches and individuals took those families’ requests for their special holiday projects. A requirement of Turn the Tide is that families’ income must be within 185 percent of the federal poverty guidelines, an increase, said Beaver, over the past few years.
At the Church of the Holy Spirit, the tree project is coordinated by Maureen Tobin; Pat McCulloh hand-draws the tags and prints them from her computer.
“Pat is an artist,” said the Rev. Helen Svoboda-Barber, rector, “and every year she makes different tags.”
“So I get to choose first,” said McCulloh, “so I always look for someone who wants art supplies or craft supplies.”
On one Sugar Plum Fairy tag, a little girl named Sarah, age 7, wants winter pants, a coat and boots. A woman, 36, asked for a winter coat. One family requested gift cards for gasoline, plus electric heaters. The mother of a newborn asked for clothes and sleepers for her baby.
But some folks haven’t always been so practical or modest in their requests.
“It got a little overwhelming,” said Beaver. “Some of the requests the donors were finding offensive, like Xboxes and televisions. People were taking advantage of the program. We were going to eliminate adults [from the program] and just help the children, but instead we left it up to the churches if they want to put adults’ names on their trees. And we tell the churches to give gift cards, gas cards and such to the adults, instead of anything outrageous.”
The age limit for children, Beaver said, is 16.
“We were finding that we had so many households of just young people, a house full of people who are 17, 18, 25, etc. So we had to do something.”
Harcourt Parish shares its project call with the Kenyon community, which increases the resources. One year, a little girl requested a large, expensive, brand-name dollhouse. Rather than buy one, community members tracked down a used dollhouse in excellent condition. The little girl and her family were thrilled.
On Sunday, Dec. 14, the final day of the drive, those attending the Church of the Holy Spirit will see a pile of presents ... not only beneath the tree but crowding the front of the church.
“One year we had five bicycles here. We can hardly get up there for communion,” said McCulloh.
She is looking forward to helping with the Dec. 17 party at which the gifts will be distributed, hosted by ISS at the First Church of the Nazarene on Coshocton Avenue from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
“It’s a big party,” said McCulloh.
“All the churches will be there,” Beaver added. “We have refreshments, we have a table full of items that children can pick out to give their parents as gifts, and ISS provides food boxes with gift certificates for a turkey or a ham and items to make a pie, etc. We make sure they have a holiday meal.”
Local grower Russ Geiger donates the tree for the Harcourt Parish project, and is enthusiastic about doing so.
“The first year he was so happy about participating that he gave us a tree so big it hid the pulpit,” laughed McCulloh.
Other Trees of Sharing can be found at First Congregational United Church of Christ, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Faith Lutheran, South Vernon United Methodist Church, Gay Street UMC, Mulberry Street UMC, Amity UMC, Jubilee Foursquare Gospel, Owl Creek Baptist, Brandon UMC, First Church of the Nazarene, St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church, First Presbyterian in Mount Vernon and others.
