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The Giving Tree
by: Alex Bowman and Amber West

Introduction
The Giving Tree was created to provide the foster children at Children To Cherish with gifts for Christmas that they might not otherwise receive. We wanted to ask for donations from the local community to fill this need. Children love presents and we love to see the children happy. This community project was designed to provide joy and happiness for all.

Statement of Need
Children to Cherish, at the time we implemented the project, serviced just under one hundred foster children. Most of the children at our agency are grouped into homes that have at least two other children, either biological or other foster children. Through the interviews that we conducted we found that the foster parents can't all ways provide the foster children with the presents they want. Although the foster parents give endless amounts of love to these children, financially, they can't afford to give them gifts on this joyous holiday. We believed that the people of Chico who were able to provide gifts to these children would.

Description of the Intervention
In collaboration with the local community and Children To Cherish our community project involved three months of preparation, and one month of implementation. The Giving Tree was a group effort that involved numerous tasks. Some of the tasks included creating questionnaires. The questionnaires were designed to discover what the foster children wanted for Christmas. They also had questions regarding clothing size, favorite activities, favorite color, and hobbies.

After distributing the questionnaire's to all the foster children we then had the completed forms returned back to the agency. We took the information from the forms and transferred them onto tiny cards, which would later be placed on Christmas trees. In order to preserve confidentiality fictitious names were assigned to each client on the cards.

While waiting for the return of all the forms we had the job of going out into the community and finding several store locations that would later be used as a present drop-off sights. At these sights Christmas trees would be set up through the month of December. On the trees would be the cards with the fake names and Christmas wish lists. The idea was that the customers of these various store would see the Christmas tree, take a card and purchase one of the gifts. The gifts would be dropped off at the stores unwrapped and unopened.

After the sights were located and confirmed, we were then in charge of finding a corresponding number of Christmas trees. The Christmas trees were all donated from different tree lots and local suppliers. Once we received the trees we would then go to one of the sites and set up and decorate the trees. Over the month the trees would be in the store we would also be responsible for the maintenance of the tree, such as watering and cleaning up the fallen needles. We would also be responsible for the weekly collection of gifts at the locations.

Once we began collecting gifts we would inspect the gifts then wrap them. We would also place them in piles corresponding to the foster home that they would eventually go to. Once all the presents were wrapped and organized, then on Christmas eve all the presents would be dropped off at the homes.

Evaluation of the Intervention
After Christmas, a follow up questionnaire was redistributed to the homes. The questionnaire asked for feed-back concerning the The Giving Tree. We asked if their was anything we could do to improve the project, and for comments on the things they liked and disliked. For the families that choose not to respond a brief over-the-phone survey was conducted to find out their reactions.

Reflections on the Project
Overall the project was an incredible success. All the families appreciated the gifts and thanked us repeatedly. The children were the biggest winners, however, and loved all the gifts. We learned that the community is very generous. The gifts that we received were wonderful. All of the children received at least one gift, some were blessed with several. The clients were very appreciative of all their new treasures. Many of the clients were able to get exactly what they asked for. As for us, we couldn't believe the amazing response to our project. We hope that you will continue this new tradition and bring the joy and happiness to the children that we were able to.

References
Interviews:
Foster Parents
Foster Children

Resources:

Journals:
Group treatment of foster children to reduce separation conflicts associated with...
Foster children; GROUP psychotherapy for children
900501
Child Welfare, May/June90, Vol. 68 Issue 3, p227, 12p
Palmer, Sally E.

Foster care children and family homelessness.
HOMELESSNESS--California; CHILDREN--Institutional care--California
980901
American Journal of Public Health, Sep98, Vol. 88 Issue 9, p1368, 3p, 2 charts
Zlotnick, Cheryl; Kronstadt, Diana; et al

Social work intervention: Foster care.
Foster home care
960701
Violence & Abuse, July96, Vol. 2 Issue 3, p241, 2p
Gardner, Helen; Smith, Eve P.

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