High Point company donates holiday trees
High Point company donates holiday trees
HIGH POINT - Even if some people didn't have enough money to buy their loved ones expensive gifts, they could get them one that they may cherish for a long time: a real Christmas tree.
And for free.
Kersey Valley Christmas in High Point gave away tall, stocky Fraser fir trees Wednesday to anyone who made the trip.
Nearly 20 cars lined up Wednesday morning before the lot at 1615 Kersey Valley Road opened at 10 a.m.
Families in vans, trucks and sedans kept rolling in to carry a tree home to their relatives or to take a few trees to their disadvantaged neighbors.
Donovan Cooper, recovering from a bout with pancreatitis, didn't think he would be home for Christmas. But he drove his van to High Point on Wednesday to bring home a live tree - what the kids wanted - to Lexington. He and his girlfriend have five kids combined.
"Plenty to keep us busy," Cooper said of his brood. "Plenty to keep us broke."
Perry Cutter of High Point hauled 12 trees in his white pickup for neighbors and anyone else who needed one.
His wife, Linda, said one tree will go to her co-worker at LifeSpan who is a single mother. The others, well, they'll find a home.
"He'll find somebody to give to," she said. "That's just the way he is."
Co-owner Tony Wohlgemuth sold Christmas trees for the first time in a lot next to his Kersey Valley Spookywoods Haunted Attraction.
He said he bought 1,300 trees from the Rosser Family Christmas Tree Farm in Elk Creek, Va., without knowing how many would sell.
The trees, originally priced from $20 to $100, went on sale in November. On Sunday, more than 1,100 trees stood on the lot.
Next year, Wohlgemuth said he'll probably only buy 300 trees.
Even with discounts, Wohlgemuth said people weren't buying. He gave customers at the haunted attraction a $5 discount with a ticket purchase and handed 500 vouchers to donors at a local blood drive. Donors would receive a $15 discount, but only a handful took the offer.
His last resort was to give the trees away in lieu of mulching.
"I enjoy giving them away more than selling them," Wohlgemuth said, smiling.
"What kind of price can you put on goodwill?" he asked.
Wohlgemuth is taking the pay-it-forward approach. He's giving away the trees this year in hopes that recipients will donate what little they have or return next year to buy a tree.
He and his seven-man crew have heard that many people can't afford a tree in this economic climate.
Nichole Patino of Greensboro took her children, Kateland, 14, and Isaac, 8, to get a tree because they couldn't afford one. As they were headed to cut a tree from a friend's lot, another friend called and told her about the tree giveaway.
"We feel it's a real blessing that she called us," Patino said.
Christmas is about Jesus Christ to her family, she said. They plan to sit around the tree to talk about what the holiday really means to them, she said.
"We're blessed," Patino said, her eyes welling up with tears.
Seth Collins, a Kersey Valley employee, said he likes to see people drive off with a tree and smile. He remembers when his family received help from others to provide a good Christmas.
"We're making somebody a Christmas that they'll always remember," he said.
Contact Dioni L. Wise at 373-7091 or dioni.wise@news-record.com
Jim Smith of Greensboro (left) points out the free tree he wants to employee Seth Collins.
Jerry Wolford / News & Record
