Families in the Salvation Army's Angel Tree program are picking up their gifts this week.
"It is magical," Salvation Army North Texas Area Commander Major Dawn McFarland said. "It's absolutely magical!"
It's been months since Angel Tree applications were first accepted for this holiday season. Then came corporate and private gift donations, and now the gifts are being picked up. It's all made possible with generous donations and volunteers.
"We have people like Santa, who has his list and checks it twice," McFarland said.
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Volunteers make sure the right gifts get to the right families. All of it is coded by numbers, but the Angel Tree recipients are more than just a number.
"Somebody cared enough about you, without knowing you, to lift a burden off," McFarland said. "That's community!"
"For example, this one child wanted a twin comforter, which I'm sure he got, and an outdoor toy," volunteer Betty Nelson said as she collected one family's gifts. "Happiness and generosity is the first things that came to my mind."
"And it's really wonderful to know that on Christmas morning when I wake up and watch my grandkids open up their gifts, and my children open up their gifts, that in North Texas our people that we've cared for are taken care of," McFarland said.
Outside in the parking lot of the Salvation Army warehouse in Dallas, volunteer Tricia Adamson helped put bags in cars that came to pick up their Angel Tree gifts.
"It makes me feel wonderful to be able to give back. I've been in a place before raising four kids by myself," Adamson said. "So I really wish and hope for the future that people know that there is hope out there for them."
