ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Some folks decorate the tree. Some folks trim it. But at Custom Diesel Service in Allentown, folks throw the tree.<\/p>\n
Now in its ninth year, Allentown’s annual Christmas Tree Throw sees Douglas firs lose their roots and fly the coups.<\/p>\n
Anita Skelton owns Custom Diesel Service, where the event is held each year.<\/p>\n
“My son’s best friend’s father started this in Bethlehem,” she said. “And this gentleman lost his life in 2016, so we decided to have an Allentown version of it in his honor.”<\/p>\n
What started out just for fun, now raises hundreds for charities, and has turned into a bit of a fiery rivalry between the city’s fire and police stations.<\/p>\n
“They tease and we have a lot of fun,” Skelton said.<\/p>\n
Anyone is able to join in. Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk was one participant Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n
“We had some Special Olympics athletes here who did great and enjoyed it, too,” Skelton said.<\/p>\n
Winners in the male and female categories each won a gift card, but also, and perhaps more importantly, bragging rights.<\/p>\n
Last year’s big winner went to a firefighter. This year it was a police officer, Anthony Campanell, beating out a firefighter by just two inches.<\/p>\n
“Come together as a community, come together as a city,” Campanell said. “It’s fun. It’s a good time of the year and it’s for a good cause.”<\/p>\n
But really, both sides win. The Allentown Fire Department chose to raise money for the Burn Prevention Network<\/a>,\u00a0while the Allentown Police Department raised money for Special Olympics Pennsylvania<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Organizers say each charity will receive around $300 apiece, following Friday’s contest.<\/p>\n Those who wish, can still donate to each cause:<\/p>\n Special Olympics PA<\/p>\n 2158 Avenue C, Suite 201<\/p>\n Bethlehem, PA 18017<\/p>\n Burn Prevention Network<\/p>\n 6081 Hamilton Blvd.<\/p>\n Suite 600-628<\/p>\n Allentown, PA 18106<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Some folks decorate the tree. Some folks trim it. But at Custom Diesel Service in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[119,644,2602,30094,30092,153,155,154,30091,30088,25433,2459,84,30090,29089,30087,28,2296,30089,30093],"class_list":["post-53487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-fire-department","tag-allentown-police-department","tag-anita-skelton","tag-anthony-campanell","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-custom-diesel-service","tag-douglas-fir","tag-fir","tag-matt-tuerk","tag-mayor","tag-olympic-national-forest","tag-olympics","tag-pacific-temperate-rainforests","tag-pennsylvania","tag-police-officer","tag-pseudotsuga","tag-special-olympics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53487","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=53487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}