TRUMBULL — Students at St. Catherine of Siena School, from preschool through eighth grade, recently took part in a holiday tradition that began three decades ago, and decorated “Trees of Hope,” which will be raffled off to support children and families at Ronald McDonald House in New Haven.
According to Laura Hurley, director of marketing and enrollment, the school began participating in the annual event some 30 years ago at the request of Mrs. Lane Whitmoyer, a kindergarten teacher, who had a relative staying at the Ronald McDonald House. She asked Mrs. Patty Schickler, the seventh-grade teacher and student council moderator, to have the students work in their classes and make trees to donate.
This year, each tree decorated by the students had a different theme. The pre-school tree was Curious George; kindergarten was Crayola; first grade was First Responders; second grade was Beavers; third grade, Sports; fourth grade, Taylor Swift; fifth grade, Sweet Treats; sixth grade, Star of Bethlehem; seventh grade, Hawaiian; and eighth grade, Space.
The school financed the trees and the materials. The room mothers purchased the materials and worked with the classes to create the decorations.
“Trees of Hope is such an important tradition at SCSS because it gives the children a hands-on opportunity to participate in charity, said Tara Craig, second-grade room mother. “By engaging them in the process, we are able to open up a conversation about why we, as a school, do these trees and who the Ronald McDonald House benefits. It can be difficult for children to not be able to keep something they work hard on creating, but when they hear what good their gift can bring, a lesson in generosity is learned.”
Since 1990, the Trees of Hope benefit has been an annual event sponsored by Ronald McDonald House Charities of Connecticut and Western Massachusetts. The 34th Annual Trees of Hope will be held December 2 to 10, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily at the Maritime Center at 555 Long Wharf Drive in New Haven.
The event, which is open to the public, will feature more than 150 holiday displays donated and sponsored by individuals, businesses and community organizations. Raffle tickets are sold for $1 each, and attendees will be able to distribute their tickets towards the displays they would like to win. The proceeds will benefit Ronald McDonald House.
The Ronald McDonald House of Connecticut is at 860 Howard Avenue in New Haven, close to Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital. The facility has 18 guest rooms and two respite rooms to serve families with children undergoing specialized medical treatment at hospitals and healthcare facilities around the state. (There is another house in Springfield, Mass.)
When the Connecticut facility opened in 1985, it was a 12 guest room house. In 2017, a new house opened as “a home away from home” for families of children who are being treated at nearby hospitals, including Yale-New Haven, the Hospital of St. Raphael and Bridgeport Hospital, among others.
