It’s a challenging year for the angels on Nevada’s annual Angel Tree.
In case you aren’t familiar, the Angel Tree is a charitable holiday gift-giving endeavor.
Each angel on the tree represents a child who is in need this year. Each paper “angel” includes a list of things a child both needs and wants. Whether as individuals, families, organizations, or groups, the public usually picks angels off the tree and tries to fulfill as many of the needs and wants of their “angel” as possible.
Jodi Heeren, the student and family development specialist with the Nevada School District, is concerned about this longstanding tradition during this time of COVID.
“We are not able to get angels out (to the community) in the same way as we normally do,” she writes today in an email. “A lot of people aren’t picking them up, churches aren’t open, people don’t want to shop,” she lists as some of the reasons this year presents a bigger challenge for this project in our community.
More than 100 angels still need to be adopted for the holiday season.
Once adopted, the person or people providing gifts for an angel have until Nov. 30 to return gifts to the Nevada Community Resource Center, at 1037 8th St., Nevada.
Chris Burling, director of the Resource Center, emphasizes they want “unwrapped gifts” when people return them. “We would certainly accept donations of wrapping paper,” she noted, but all gifts, once received at the Resource Center, are sorted and checked before they are wrapped and delivered to families on Dec. 19.
Anyone who can help adopt one or more angels is asked to contact Whitney at the Nevada Community Resource Center. You can contact her by email, wanderson@nevadacubs.org, or by phone, 515-382-1600. She can provide you information for one or more adopted angels.
Thank you for considering support of this meaningful Nevada tradition.
–Written by Marlys Barker, City of Nevada
