Salvation Army Hopes For More Angel Tree Adoptions Before Christmas

The Salvation Army Angel Tree is a tradition that goes back nearly 45 years.

Its a program that provides Christmas gifts to help families in need, but the non-profit can only do that with help from the community. Elves were hard at work inside Santa's Workshop at the Salvation Army Joy Center in Tulsa.

"We have a lot of Santa's helpers here working to make sure no child is forgotten.," said Salvation Army Tulsa Area Commander Major Charlotte Gargis. 

Volunteers went through toy donations for the annual Salvation Army Angel Tree to make sure thousands of children in Tulsa have gifts this Christmas, 

"They check the list, they check it twice," she said. 

Gargis has been a part of the Salvation Army Angel Tree for more than 25 years.

She said without these donations, some kids wouldn't have gifts under the tree.

"These families, they've had to choose either between buying food to put on the table, paying rent, or paying utilities than having to buy for Christmas," Major Gargis said. 

For the 2023 holiday season, the Tulsa Salvation Army had 6,000 angels, but a few days before gifts were due, only about 2,200 angel gifts had been returned. 

"Although it looks like a pile of many, many angles, we still have about 4000 angels that we still need to be returned and shopped for," Major Gargis said. 

Roughly 15-20 percent of adopted angel tree tags don't get returned at all. Major Gargis said one big had been toy drives around town. 

"These toy drives are an incredible gift because we can use those gifts to fill in the ones that don't get adopted or don't get anything," she said. 

The kids won't see what goes into making the magic, but they will experience it on Christmas day.

"So we bring a little bit of peace and hopefully a whole lot of joy on Christmas morning for these families," said Major Gargis.

Angel Tree gifts are due Saturday, December 9th, and can be returned at Woodland Hills Mall, any Mattress Firm location, or at the Tulsa Salvation Army Area Command Center. 

More information about the Salvation Army Angel Tree and volunteering can be found here.