Deina Bailey from Lilydale Adventist Church (Vic) is an advocate for ADRA’s Christmas Tree Appeal. Her church has featured a tree with ADRA gift tags as part of their annual carols night over the past few years, growing the event to the point where they now raise more than $A6500 for ADRA on the night.
“I’ve always been supportive of ADRA,” says Deina. “So when our church started running a carols program, my husband and I thought it would be a great idea if we had a segment where we sold some of the ADRA gifts featured on the tree.”
They were given 10 minutes of stage time and Deina says, “We figured people can’t turn down a child asking for donations, so why not use that to our advantage? We had our junior Sabbath school kids prepped and ready to sell off the gift tags, auction-style. It was great fun. For our first time with very few people understanding what the tags really meant, we raised around $1500.”
Each year since then, Lilydale Church has run the gift tag auction without fail. “It’s just continued to grow in support from the church and in the amount raised,” says Deina.
Deina says you can have a lot of fun in finding creative ways to include others in your Christmas Tree Appeal. She notes, “The ADRA Christmas Tree has become a highlight of our carols evening!”
So what would you do if you had the power to grant wishes? This Christmas, you can restore hope to thousands by coordinating an ADRA Christmas Tree fundraiser at your church, school or organisation.
You can register to run an ADRA Christmas Tree fundraiser at http://bit.ly/ADRAChristmasTree.
