Subaru
of Corvallis was proud to take part in the 2013 Salvation Army Angel Tree
Program. With the help of our great customers in our community, we were
able to help 50 families experience a better Christmas.
Through
The Salvation Army Angel Tree Program, necessities and Christmas gifts are
provided for disadvantaged children from infants to age 12 and for seniors
citizens who are 60 years and older. Angel Trees are placed in area stores
during the first part of November.
Each
tree is adorned with angel tags containing an angel's age, gender, clothing
sizes and gift wishes. Community members select an "angel," purchase
items for that child or senior based on the information on the tag, and then
return the gifts to the store where the angel was chosen.
The
Salvation Army provided 5,445 Angels with Christmas joy in 2013!
Along
with the familiar Red Kettles, the Angel Tree program is one of The Salvation
Army's highest profile Christmas efforts. Angel Tree was created by The
Salvation Army in 1979 by Majors Charles and Shirley White when they worked
with a Lynchburg, Virginia, shopping mall to provide clothing and toys for
children at Christmas time.
The
program got its name because the Whites identified the wishes of local children
by writing their gift needs on Hallmark greeting cards that featured pictures
of angels. They placed the cards on a Christmas tree at the mall to allow
shoppers to select children to help. Thanks to the Whites, who were assigned by
The Army to the Lynchburg area at the time, more than 700 children had a
brighter Christmas that first year.
Three
years later, when the Whites were transferred to Nashville, Tennessee, Angel
Tree was launched in the Music City. WSM radio, which airs the Grand Ol' Opry,
came on board that year as the first Angel Tree co-sponsor in the U.S.
Because
of the on-air promotion on WSM in Nashville, as well as national publicity on
CNN and the Larry King Show, news of Angel Tree spread across the country like
wildfire.