ALLENTOWN, Pa. – This year more than 2,000 children are registered for gifts through the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program.<\/p>\n
“There is really an increase in need and kind of all-around where we’re seeing a lot of demand for our services. So we’re just hoping that we can provide them with a great Christmas this year,” says Darien Huaman, Director of Social Services for the Salvation Army Allentown Corps.<\/p>\n
Darian Huaman says what makes the Angel Tree special is that gifts are personalized for each child.<\/p>\n
“We are able to list those are the three or four different things that parent has told us that the child would really love to get for the holiday season,” Huaman says. “So then it gives the donors a really nice idea that they’re buying something specifically that this child has asked for.”<\/p>\n
Around 35 partners step up to host a tree. One of those partners is The Shanty on 19th in Allentown.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been doing it for nine years. We take 100 boys and girls,” General Manager Christina says. “This is the first year we have many tags left. It is a hard year for everyone. However, in the previous years, we’ve had great success.”<\/p>\n
Owner Joe Tatasciore says they’re hoping for a final push.<\/p>\n
“We have about 30 or 40 tags left over,” Tatasciore says. “We’re hoping in the next three days people can stop by, grab a tag or two, and get it back to us.”<\/p>\n
On top of the Angel Tree, the Shanty is also hosting a toy drive for pediatric cancer patients December 10th.<\/p>\n
Ozain Valoy, a Musician with Space Kamp, who will be performing on the 10th, says, “Bring a brand-new toy. It can be a toy from the dollar store. It can be a toy from wherever you want. You know, as long as you’re able to put a smile on a kid’s face, it’s holiday.”<\/p>\n
With the Salvation Army’s deadline approaching, and dozens of tags left at The Shanty, both say these final donations could make all the difference for local kids.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – This year more than 2,000 children are registered for gifts through the Salvation Army’s Angel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,29771,5527,29774,29773,14906,27393,22306,29776,29772,29777,28,4508,29769,29768,29775,29766,29770,29767],"class_list":{"0":"post-52661","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news","11":"tag-christina","12":"tag-christmas","13":"tag-darian-huaman","14":"tag-darien-huaman","15":"tag-director","16":"tag-general-manager","17":"tag-gift","18":"tag-joe-tatasciore","19":"tag-musician-with-space-kamp","20":"tag-ozain-valoy","21":"tag-pennsylvania","22":"tag-salvation-army","23":"tag-salvation-army-allentown-corps","24":"tag-salvation-army-officers","25":"tag-space-kamp","26":"tag-the-salvation-army","27":"tag-valoy","28":"tag-workfare-in-the-united-kingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}