Festival Of Trees 2012

Every year I take my AVID students to volunteer as hosts and hostesses at the Festival of Trees, an annual event to benefit Primary Children's Medical Center.  Christmas trees, wreaths, centerpieces, and gingerbread houses are all made (usually in honor of someone), donated, auctioned, and then placed on display for the general public for several days and thousands of people come to view them.  My students basically guarded the display areas to keep items from being touched or stolen.  Each shift lasted for three hours and it is quite boring to stand in one place for that long, especially for energetic high school students, so I am always very proud that I have so many students volunteer every year (see 2011 here and 2010 here).  Here are some of my wonderful students with the beautiful trees and centerpieces.

I loved this tree because of the elephants!

The tree was called "Pinkilicious."

Many of my seniors have been working on their applications to the University of Utah to meet the priority deadline this week so this tree was very appropriate!

"The Mad Hatter" was a very popular tree.

"The Princess and the Frog" was also very popular.

This tree was called "Mia's Dream."  Mia was a four year old little girl and her dream was to meet Mickey and Minnie Mouse.  The Make-A-Wish Foundation sent her to Disney World but she died before she could meet them.  This one made me cry.

Some of my students have gone to the festival all three years.  This particular student randomly posed with pink trees every year.  Of course we had to carry on the tradition so we went looking for a pink tree for him to pose with.  We found "Pinkilicious!"

This was my favorite display!

 

It is a little bit stressful arranging these events (and making sure that 50 students are where they should be and doing what they are supposed to be doing) but afterward I am always glad that I made the effort.