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About Seaside signal. (Seaside, Or.) 1905-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 27, 2015)
November 27, 2015 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com • 7A Operation Christmas Child ‘really brings the community together’ Boxes from Page 1A JUSTIN GRAFTON STUDIOS/SUBMITTED PHOTO Attendees join in for Christmas carols during the gala at last year’s Festival of Trees, an annual fundraiser put on by the Providence Seaside Foundation. Local organizations, businesses and individuals sponsor and decorate trees, auctioned off during the live auction. Festival of Trees to ring in holiday season for 18th year Providence Seaside Foundation raising funds for new surgical equipment By Katherine Lacaze Seaside Signal The Providence Seaside Foundation hopes to daz- zle, delight and raise funds for new surgical equipment during the 2015 Festival of Trees, an annual tradition. The festival will ring in the holiday season for the 18th year, Saturday, Dec. 5, with a free public open house from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and a gala dinner and auction starting at 5 p.m. Both events will take place at the Seaside Civic and Convention Center. The festival “is sort of the premier event of the holiday season,” executive director Kimberly Ward said. Since the event takes place in ear- ly December, it puts people in the mood for the holiday season, she added. “People have really embraced it and come to anticipate it.” During the public open house, families can visit Santa Claus, enjoy refresh- ments, decorate cook- ies, do craft activities and face-painting and view the display of decorated trees. That evening, the gala starts with a champagne reception, socialization and a silent auction. Acústica World Music will provide music and guests will again have an opportunity to pe- ruse the holiday tree entries. The selection of silent auc- tion items at the gala, donat- ed by the local community, will include wreaths, vaca- tion getaways, gift baskets, gift certi¿cates, artwork and more. “It’s going to be a great variety, something for ev- eryone,” Ward said. JUSTIN GRAFTON STUDIOS/SUBMITTED PHOTO Each tree at Providence Sea- side Foundation’s annual Festival of Trees fundraiser is decorated with a theme that matches the item being auctioned off during the evening gala. Magical trees, beautiful art Dinner and the live auc- tion for the trees will begin about 6:30 p.m. The trees, 22 this year, are the high- light of the event, Ward said. They are sponsored by local organizations, businesses and individuals. Several hospital staff members par- ticipate, and this year, three trees are coming from the staff of the hospital’s surgi- cal department, the event’s bene¿ciary. “The trees are so beauti- ful and all of the donors and the designers just put their heart and soul into creating them,” Ward said. “It’s just magical.” Each tree is decorated with a theme to match its accompanying giveaway item. The entries this year include a Hawaiian-themed tree that includes an eight- night trip to Maui, includ- ing a stay at a two-bedroom condominium near the beach and $1,000 in airfare; a “Classic Romance In the Wine Country”-themed tree that includes a stay at The Inn At Abeja in Walla Walla, Wash., a wine tour and a gift certi¿cate for a local restaurant; and a tree themed “Scandinavia Christmas from Astoria,” sponsored by FinnWare, featuring gift certi¿cates for area attractions, including Baked Alaska and the Can- nery Pier Hotel. The live auction also will include original artwork by Bill Steidel, of Cannon Beach, the event’s signature artist. The artwork, which Ward described as “beauti- ful,” is titled “Winter Ice,” and depicts a wintry vil- lage scene reminiscent of Steidel’s childhood. New York-born Steidel is skilled in numerous cre- ative communications, including music, writing, painting, sculpting and book illustrations. He works with a variety of media and en- compasses several themes. Steidel, his wife Sally and their son Sam have operat- ed the Steidel’s Art gallery, on South Hemlock Street in Cannon Beach, for more than 50 years. Tickets to the gala cost $100 per person; $65 is tax-deductible. For reserva- tions, call the foundation at 503-717-7604. coordinated effort between families, church congrega- tions, schools and other or- ganizations. “It really brings the com- munity together,” volunteer Mark Kenny said of Opera- tion Christmas Child, a proj- ect of Samaritan’s Purse. He and his wife Lorri are in their ¿fth year as relay cen- ter coordinators for the pro- gram at North Coast Family Fellowship, but the Seaside church has been a drop-off site for much longer. During National Collec- tion Week, volunteers assist- ed the Kennys in overseeing the drop-off site for a few hours each day. When the shoeboxes arrived, volun- teers sorted, secured and put them into large cartons, which then were taken to the state collection center near Portland. From there, the boxes will be taken to a processing cen- ter in California, where they will be searched for items that can’t pass through Unit- ed States Customs and Bor- der Protection, Lorri Kenny said. For instance, boxes are not to include used or dam- age items; war-related items, such as toy guns, knives or military ¿gures; chocolate or food; out-of-date candy; liquids or lotions; medica- tions or vitamins; breakable items; or aerosol cans. If someone at the processing center does remove an item because it is dangerous or inappropriate, they replace it with another item, Lorri Kenny assured. Finally, over the next year, the shoeboxes will be delivered to children ages 2 to 14 in developing countries across the world. Sometimes delivery can take up to sev- eral months, because of the mode of transportation re- quired for getting the shoe- boxes to remote locations. The Kennys’ grand- daughter, 7-year-old Kylie, KATHERINE LACAZE/SEASIDE SIGNAL Volunteer Tom Parke (left) and relay center coordinator Mark Kenny organize cartons of shoeboxes filled with toys and gifts at North Coast Family Fellowship for Operation Christmas Child during National Collection Week, Nov. 16 through 23. who worked as a volun- teer this year, said her fa- vorite part of the program is “helping children get to have stuff,” although she also enjoyed handing out stickers and candy to those delivering boxes to the drop-off site. She and her family put together two boxes — one for a girl and one for a boy. All participants specify if their shoebox is for a boy or girl and from which age category: 2 to 4 years old; 5 to 9 years old; or 10 to 14 years old. Lorri Kenny said, for some reason, they generally get more packag- es for girls and for children in the younger age groups; the oldest category often “is lacking,” she said. Many of the volunteers this year were congregants at North Coast Family Fel- lowship, but “anybody that would be really excited about Operation Christmas Child could help,” Lorri Kenny said. Anyone can prepare a box, regardless of religious views, but Samar- itan’s Purse is an evangel- Dining on the ical Christian humanitarian organization. Samaritan’s Purse’s church partners in recipient countries help get the shoe- boxes into the hands of chil- dren at their churches, local public schools and other sites. Lorri Kenny said she likes the program because “it’s not just about the box; the box is where it starts.” Children are invited to their local church for a multi- week religious discipleship program, which ends with a graduation ceremony, and receive Bibles in their native language. Some children recipients share their stories about get- ting a shoebox, and their tes- timonies often reveal what an impact the shoeboxes have and how happy they are to receive even seem- ingly mundane items, like pencils, notebooks, balls or brushes. “We forget how much we’re blessed,” Lorri Kenny said. “We take a lot for grant- ed in the United States.” Mark Kenny agreed it of- ten takes giving up so little to pack a shoebox for a child and it can be a big eye-open- er for people to see “what we can do without.” Since becoming a leader, he said he’s enjoyed “being able to work with a team of people that’s really excited about (the program) and to listen to testimonies afterward about how (the boxes) af- fected children’s lives.” The testimonies are col- lected and shared on the or- ganization’s website. Sometimes a recipient will start a correspondence with the giver of his or her shoebox. Lorri Kenny said her grandson, Dylan Ma- comb, now has a pen-pal in the Philippines because of a shoebox he packed with his family last year. North Coast Family Fel- lowship, the only drop-off location in Clatsop County, is part of the larger north- west team, along with sites in the Portland-metro area, Tillamook and others, for the program. “We always hope to make a mark bigger than we did last year,” Lorri Kenny said. North Coast Growing the surgery department Since its ¿rst Festival of Trees in 1997, the Provi- dence Seaside Foundation has raised more than $1.4 million. In 2014, the festival raised $143,000 to support the new north coast Provi- dence ElderPlace program in Seaside. Proceeds also went to partner with Med- ical Teams International to provide free mobile dental services to uninsured adults and children. This year, proceeds from the gala event will be used to purchase new surgical equipment, including an enhanced video camera with internal scopes and an intense light source and digital printers, to provide “the very latest in surgical technology” at Providence Seaside Hospital, Ward said. The new equipment, which costs approximately $210,000, will increase the scope of procedures avail- able at the hospital. “This new technology is going to be phenomenal for our community,” Ward said, adding it “will provide ac- cessibility to more complex surgeries here on the north coast that are not currently being performed.” “The idea is really to keep people closer to home instead of having to go to Portland for surgeries,” Ward said. The foundation’s board of directors will cover the cost of the equipment not raised during the Festival of Trees. Ward said the fund- raising goal for the event this year is $150,000. 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