Supporters of Arnold AFB Angel Tree help brighten Christmas for 135 area children

  • Published
  • By Bradley Hicks
  • AEDC/PA
Active-duty Airmen, DOD civilians and contractors across Arnold Air Force Base have once again delivered a quick and resounding response, ensuring a brighter Christmas for dozens of area children.

The bags filled with toys and clothes that recently occupied the Arnold AFB Chapel served as evidence that this year’s AEDC Angel Tree program was again successful. Thanks to the efforts of Arnold team members, all 135 of the children on the Angel Tree list received sponsorship.

“Arnold has a big footprint when it comes to supporting the community, and little things like this are what bring us together,” said Master Sgt. Ricardo Hollingsworth who, along with Master Sgt. Beverly Spademan, coordinated the AEDC Angel Tree program for the second consecutive year. “It shows that we care and that the community can depend on us for that support.”

Each year, personnel across Arnold sponsor “angels” from a list and purchase gifts based on each angel’s wants, such as toys, bicycles and electronics, and needs, like shirts, coats and shoes, as identified in the list. The angels are local children who may not otherwise receive Christmas gifts from family members due to their financial situations.

Personnel at Arnold Air Force Base have worked with the Center for Family Development in Shelbyville since the late 1990s, and Arnold is among the businesses and organizations that receives an angels list from the Shelbyville-based organization. When the partnership began, there were around 30 children on the Angel Tree list provided to Arnold. As the number of people seeking support through the Center has increased, so has the number of children on the list.

Last year, there were 140 children on the list provided to Arnold. All received sponsorship.

In an effort to get word out as quickly as possible this year, the AEDC Angel Tree coordinators reached out to the Center for Family Development in early November to see if the organization could provide any information on children in need of sponsorship. Within a couple of days, Hollingsworth and Spademan received a list of the wants and needs of 80 Shelbyville children.

Hollingsworth and Spademan worked to manually enter the provided list into the AEDC SharePoint. That list was posted on the site on Nov. 14. By Nov. 20, all 80 children had received sponsorship. The AEDC Chapel, which served as the drop-off location for Angel Tree items, quickly began to fill soon afterward.

“We sent the email out on Thursday. By that following Wednesday, we had the entire list sponsored,” Hollingsworth said.

The church attended by Master Sgt. Lashonda Morehead, who works alongside Hollingsworth and Spademan at the Arnold AFB Medical Aid Station, received an Angel Tree list of children from Tullahoma. Because the first 80 angels were all sponsored before Black Friday and coordinators were asked if Arnold would receive additional angels, Hollingsworth and Spademan were allowed to include the extra children from the list provided to Morehead’s church. Spademan also found others to add to the list.

The coordinators of the Angel Tree program at Arnold AFB were confident these additional children would quickly find sponsors.

“We have a big population,” Spademan said. “We knew it would be well-covered.”

Hollingsworth has sponsored angels from each of his first couple of years at Arnold. He said being involved in the program is something “near and dear” to him, adding the Air Force strives to benefit the communities in which its bases are located.

”All of the stuff we do to support our community is because this is who we are, so I don’t feel like it’s an additional duty or it’s my job to do this,” Hollingsworth said. “I want to do this.”

Spademan has also sponsored angels over the past couple of years. She said she has seen firsthand how the Angel Tree program can help make a child’s Christmas special.

“I always sponsor kids,” Spademan said. “My kids were on the tree when I was a young Airman, single mom, and it always made my kids’ Christmas.”

Spademan added that helping out those in need is what Christmas is all about. She said those across Arnold step up to support those less fortunate in the community.

“It brings that bond, that relationship, between the military and the civilians and it shows that we are all in this together, especially around the holidays,” she said.

Representatives with the Center for Family Development visited Arnold after the Dec. 6 drop-off deadline to collect the gifts provided by Arnold personnel. The Center is responsible for the wrapping and distribution of the presents.