Pick An Ornament And Help Make A Smile

Pictured Left to Right; Dan Hayes, Mahaska County Sheriffs Posse; Jacob Vander Pol , Oskaloosa Police Association; Scott Howard, Oskaloosa Firefighter; Lee Rice & Jamie Nienkirk, Wal-Mart; Carrie and Bill Bainbridge of Wiggs Country Store (photo submitted)

Oskaloosa, Iowa – With Christmas quickly approaching and many families still suffering from economic setback, volunteers ask for your assistance in helping a child obtain a Christmas present this year.

The Oskaloosa Police Association in conjunction with the Oskaloosa Firefighters and Mahaska County Sheriff’s Posse, along with Wal-Mart (who started the program) and Wigg’s Country Store are all sponsors of the program “to help those people who might not be able to provide gifts for their children this Christmas season,” explained Lt. Troy Boston of the Oskaloosa Police Department.

The ornaments are located on a tree at Wal-Mart and have a child’s age and gender along with clothing sizes and toy ideas. The tree usually goes up around Black Friday.

Boston explained to me how the tree works. “As shoppers go by, if they feel they have a little extra to share with a child they pick one of those bulbs [ornament], and they go throughout the store and they buy the kids a few things that might be on that Christmas bulb, or something else. It’s entirely up to them.”

The paper ornament serves a vital function in the process. It helps identify what child you have bought the items for. If you have chosen to buy, you would pay for the items, then walk the bag with the items over to customer service and put the ornament into the bag so those items you have carefully chosen will end up where you intended.

Sometimes people start shopping and find out they might not be able to purchase those items in the end. That’s not a problem. Just take the ornament back to the tree and place it there once again, that way the next shopper will be able to grab it.

“Last year was the biggest year that we had. We had 309 kids,” Boston said of the ever expanding program. This year they already have around 200 kids, and the season has only just begun. “It use to be, I wanna say about 100 kids, that was a lot, and now it’s up to 309 and because of the way things are going, we’re kind of expecting that number to go up.”

The list of children comes from SEIDA when parents request to be put on the list after they have been approved for assistance this winter.

“Without the donations, without the help of the people going out and pulling these bulbs off the tree, there’s just no way we could do it,” explained Boston.

“All of the monies we collect for this program stay with this program,” Boston said of the group.