The holiday season is almost upon the residents of Guthrie County, and one national annual event is getting started with a little help in Guthrie Center. New Opportunities of Guthrie County Family Development Center Coordinator Rhonda Huggins tells Raccoon Valley Radio that their program “The Giving Tree” has started, in conjunction with Toys for Tots.

“The Giving Tree” is a Christmas tree that New Opportunities puts up in their office in the Guthrie Center City Hall. Huggins says that she takes the Toys for Tots requests and writes the information down on a card, which is then hung up on the tree. Anyone can come in and get a card from the tree, and then go and get things listed on it.

Huggins mentions that there are no names of children on the cards, but numbers for privacy’s sake. Also included are things that the child would like, and clothing sizes in case the child needs something new to wear. She says that once the things have been purchased, just bring them back to New Opportunities unwrapped, and leave the card with the items.

Huggins says this lets parents prepare gifts how they’d like to.

“That way, then the parents who have signed up, have got toys that they can go ahead and wrap themselves, and the child does not know that it came from someone other than their parent.”

Huggins is hoping to have the tree filled with cards soon, to give anyone who would like to help time to get the things on the card they grab, and then get them back to New Opportunities.