Glace Bay club struggling to sell Christmas trees for adopt-a-family program

The Glace Bay Y's Men and Women's Club in Cape Breton is struggling this year to raise money for its Christmas adopt-a-family program.

Money is raised every year from the sale of Christmas trees. The club has been sellingtrees for the past 11 years.

Club president Bobby Donovan said they usually sell out quickly. This year, he saidthey still have a lot of trees left just a few days before Christmas.

"Right now there's $700sitting out there in the yard and that's adopt-a-kid money, it's their money," he said. "The money I used to buy the trees is money we use for other donations during the year."

Donovan said they provide food and toys among other items.

"It works out to around $600 per family, we buy a big order for them."

A matter of size

Club member Billy Burke has been spending a lot of time on the lot. He said the trees this year are a bit smaller, which may be part of the problem.

"We had 120 and a couple of small ones.We're down to about 40 trees left now, but usually in past years we were sold out by now," he said.

"People are looking for eight-foot, nine-foot trees. Ours are six, or six-and-a-half foot now, the big ones are mainly gone."

Donovan said he learned about the adopt-a-family program from his father many years ago, and he's happy to continue the tradition through the club.

"I learned this project because every year my father always made sure he adopted one family every year," he said. "He would come to our houses and take things out of everyone's cupboards and he would go buy the toys, and I keep it running."

Donovan said so far they can only help one out of five families.

He said he's confident the community will come through for them and purchase the remaining trees so they can continue aproud tradition in Glace Bay.

Otherwise, he said they'll have to send the trees to the dump, which will cost them even more money.

The trees sell for $35. The lot is located on King Edward Street across from Tim Hortons.

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