GREENVILLE – The Darke County Commissioners donated to the Fish Mitten Tree to decorate the Christmas tree located at Montage, 525 South Broadway in downtown Greenville.
“Always enjoy coming out promoting the Mitten Tree,” said Darke County Commission Chairman, Matt Aultman. “There are a lot of kids you don’t realize within our community that when the weather gets cold they don’t have coats, they don’t have hats, they don’t have mittens. The Sheriff Deputies always work to get jackets for the folks that need to have warmth. This is just doing a small part for the youth of our community to have mittens and hats for the winter season.”
The Mitten Tree has been an annual holiday project of the Local Fish organization for over 50 years.
In addition to the downtown tree, additional trees are located at Greenville Public Library, 520 Sycamore Street, in the Brethren Retirement Community, 750 Chestnut Street in Greenville, and at Fourman’s Variety Store, 4 West George Street in Arcanum.
To best meet the needs of children directly served by Head Start programs, donated gloves and mittens should fit boys and girls under age 5; however, donated items in larger sizes will be shared with Head Start Families.
“The mittens is something that we have done every year as a county just to show that we support the children in the community,” said Darke County Commissioner Marshall Combs. “We never want to see a child left behind. It’s winter time, it’s Ohio and it gets cold so just wanted to show our support here in the community.”
Many churches and organizations also erect trees that collect gloves and mittens from their members. These donations are then passed on to Fish to be given to the Little Head Start students.
“It is a great time of the year, it’s a time for us to reach out,” said Commissioner Larry Holmes. “There are folks through no circumstance of their own who need assistance and we certainly want to help those folks at this time of year as well. The little folks are the focus and let’s make it a good year for them.”
So that the mittens and gloves can be distributed before Christmas, contributions should be received by December 21. For more information regarding the Mitten Tree, contact Marilyn Delk at 937-548-2482 or 937-459-2595.
