Monday, December 04, 2006

Program provides holiday gifts for military children

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas at Fort Belvoir’s Home and Garden Center and nowhere is the spirit of the season better exemplified than at the Angel Tree.

The 7-foot tall tree, located in the center of the store in the midst of the toy department, is adorned with colorful construction paper cutouts in the form of angels. Each angel represents a military child within the National Capital Region who is from a household with limited financial resources. In order to help a child in need, people simply select an angel from the tree, buy a gift or gifts and return them to the Home and Garden Center by Dec. 16.

“It’s helping the community,” said Army and Air Force Exchange Service staffer Madalin Cochran of the Angel Tree Program. “It’s expensive to live here. We were stationed here for two years when my husband was a lower rank. I know how it is.”
This is the 12th Christmas season that AAFES has participated in the effort. Former Home and Garden Center manager Sue McElroy came up with the idea in 1994 when her husband served as sergeant major of the Old Guard and she learned of the number of military families who were having trouble making ends meet. Fort Myer Army Community Service complies a list of children, from infants to age 12, who come from military households with limited financial resources. Those names are then placed on the tree for people to select from.

There are 250 angels on this year’s tree. Fort Myer Army Community Service will add angels to the tree as more military families in need are identified.

Cochran added that clothing is not being accepted this year and stressed that those selecting an angel can buy as many toys as they would like for the child they select. Last year, some people bought bicycles or as many as four or five toys for the child they selected, she said.

The families of children receiving gifts will be notified the weekend of Dec. 16.