From left to right: Digicel's Jazmine A. Perez, Alexandra Durant and 5 Girls Value Centre Director Deidre A Frett. Photo: VINO

Carole Durant, the original founder of the toy drive and Barbara Myers. Photo: VINO

All of the sponsors pose at the end of today's press conference. Photo: VINO

The partnership has also grown to involve 5 Girls Value Centre, RiteWay Food Market, Bamboushay and Pearl VI. At a short press briefing today the partners announced plans to collect and distribute toys for as many less fortunate children across the territory as possible.

In speaking about the project this year Digicel’s Marketing Public Relations Executive Jasmine A. Perez said that in addition to making other forms of donations their flagship store will be a drop off location for toys that will be donated to underprivileged children in the VI.

She explained persons wishing to participate in donating toys to the drive are free to pull from the tree which would be have the age and gender of the child. She however appealed for persons to respect the privacy of the children who will be receiving the gifts.

5 Girls Value Centre has also opted in to being a drop off point for gifts and will also be giving discounts to persons purchasing gifts for the drive.

Tree of Hands has been facilitating toy donations in the Virgin Islands for over 20 years and has worked with several organizations such as Cedar School, Bamboushay Lounge and International Motors, to name a few. It is headed by Alexandra Durante of Pearls VI.

Last year Tree of Hands brought smiles to the faces of close to 400 hundred children and this year they anticipate that number to increase significantly.

The story that touched the hearts of the business sector and which was told at the press briefing earlier today by Ms Alexandra V. Durante goes thus:

“The year that Tree of Hands started at Cedar School was 1994 and my mother Carole Durante was spearheading the campaign. I was just a girl of seven when we dropped off gifts and food items (donated by International Motors and Cedar School parents) to a less fortunate family on the North Shore of Tortola on Christmas Eve. I was so excited to help her play Santa especially because the year before I had debunked the myth of Santa after a bit of clever sleuthing.

When we arrived at the house, the first thing I noticed was that there were fourteen kids and one adult living in a one-bedroom, ground-floor home. The adult was an aunt who had adopted all the kids after their parents had suddenly passed. After delivering over 20 gifts, turkey with all the trimmings, and some other basic food items to the aunt, I noticed a little boy, about the same age as me, standing by our car.

With the same excitement I used to speak to my younger siblings about the holiday, I asked him if he was looking forward to Santa coming this year. To my dismay he replied, “Yes, but every year Santa flies over my brothers and sisters and misses us.”

This memory has forever been ingrained in my mind. Here was this little boy, still believing in Santa, even though Santa never came, until my mother and many supporters swooped in and gave him a Christmas he would never forget.”

What is the Tree of Hands?

A list of names and ages of under privileged children throughout the Territory are collected from churches, hospitals, social workers, and the prison.

Several trees are decorated with cut-out hands labeled with the child’s gender and age on it (no names). A person interested in participating takes a hand, or several, off the tree and buy gifts for a child of that age and gender as labeled on the hand.

The UNWRAPPED gifts are then either returned to the location of the tree where they picked up the hand.

The gifts will be picked up five days before Christmas and will be delivered the day before Christmas.

What do we get from this?

Absolutely nothing. Just the satisfaction of giving less fortunate kids a chance to enjoy what other more fortunate kids get to at Christmas.

Types of Sponsorship

Sponsorship 1:

A monetary donation so that we can pay utility bills for the December/January month for families so that they don’t have to be in the dark for Christmas. The money is not given to the families; Social Development will pay bills for them. Also some funds will be going the school in Haiti via Sarah Penney.

Sponsorship 2:

Have a tree up in your shop or office and encourage customers and coworkers to take a hand and buy a gift.

Sponsorship 3:

Grab a hand and buy a gift! No need to put your name on it, just put the hand that you received on the package so we know what age group and gender you picked.