The deadline to donate to The Salvation Army's Angel Tree Program is Dec. 13, and there are a few different ways to give to ensure the nearly 450 local children participating in the program are provided for this holiday season.
One way is to pick up one of the angel tags located on the Christmas trees at the local Walmarts. Each tag has a child's name and age, along with a list of gift wishes and necessities for them. Items should be returned to The Salvation Army at 115 Crescent St. by Dec. 14. As of Tuesday, there were about 65 angel tags left.
"They bring their gift with the tag visible to our location, and everything has to be unwrapped and brand-new, just for safety precautions," The Salvation Army Captain Stephanie Hargis said. "And if they want to provide wrapping paper or gift bags with the gift, of course, we put that with it as well."
Another way to donate is to make a financial or toy donation for the "lost angels."
"Every year we get all of the angels adopted -- the challenge is getting the angels back," Hargis said. "Every year we have about 80-90 that are not returned."
As a result, the organization relies on the community to make up for the loss.
"For The Salvation Army, there's not a budgeted item for our budget that we use for purchasing gifts," Hargis said. "We rely solely on the community for filling the rest of those that aren't brought back. ... We've never had to purchase gifts from The Salvation Army's budget because the community does such an incredible job."
New, unwrapped toys, or financial donations, can be made at their offices at 115 Crescent.
"There are some that don't prefer to do the shopping, especially with COVID," Hargis said. "Some people aren't comfortable, still, with going into the store, so we've made it available, if they want to donate, and what we can do is take that money for those that aren't adopted or brought back, and then we can use that for purchasing if we need to buy gifts for those that aren't returned."
Hargis is responsible for sanitizing all gifts before volunteers touch them to pack them up for families. While working to do this, she said, "As I'm opening gifts to get them sanitized, what people are purchasing, they're really going all out for the Angels, and I'm just so appreciative for the community ... for taking care and trusting us with being able to get all these gifts given to the children.
"It's quite overwhelming in the best way to see how to community has responded to helping us rescue Christmas. It's beautiful."