For more than 20 or so years the Pilot Club of Jasper, the Walker High School Anchor Club, and the Walker County Department of Human Resources have been decorating the Christmas trees in the Jasper Mall that covered with green and red paper angels in the hope mall shoppers will stop by, pick an angel from the tree, and help fulfill the Christmas wishes of a children in Walker County who might not otherwise get a gift this holiday season.

“We have some 65 plus angels’ on the trees this year, with the ages ranging from birth to 17 years old,” Karen King, the service supervisor at DHR. “Each of the angels has the name of a child who receives assistance through our Preventive Unit at DHR, along with their Christmas wish or wishes to Santa.”

King said over the years on the average, the Angel Tree Program has served and supported 75 to 100 children each year.

“We do our best to ensure that every child on the Angel Trees get something, and that’s important to us, because these children would not receive anything without our Angel Trees,” King said. “But not only does it help our children, but it also helps the local economy, which I’m a firm believer in doing.”

King said she would like to thank the folks at Witcher Printing for donating the paper used to make the angels year after year.

“The folks at Witcher are wonderful for helping us out this way, and I would also like to thank Tonya Frazier Jones, who helps pick up the toys at the mall location and brings them to DHR so our social workers can deliver the gifts to the children they work with each day.”

Anyone interested in buying a gift for a child on the Angel Tree can pick one of the paper angels, purchase any gift or all the gifts on the child’s list and then return the gift(s) unwrapped to either Joe’s T-shirt Factory in the Jasper Mall or to the Department of Human Resources office in Jasper. Just be sure the angel with the child’s name should be attached to the gift.

Monetary donations can also be made to DHR’s Angel Tree Program.

“We use the money we have left over after Christmas throughout the year for the kids to purchase school supplies and things like that, and the children and their families appreciate any help they receive,” King said. “And we’re so thankful there are people out there who are caring enough to provide a gift for a child who would otherwise go without.”