Last week we took down the Christmas Memorial Tree.  This year there was a total of 723 ornaments  on the tree…it’s so nice that as a community we remembered so many of our family and friends.  I want to take this time to thank everyone who had a part of making the Christmas Memorial Tree a reality:

Anna Toporowska, who starts in October to check the list, make sure we have ornaments for everyone whose name is on the list and starts making new ones.

Darrell Eskritt, who helps take the tree down, put ornaments on and then take them off and generally helping with whatever needs to be done.

Gail Eskritt who helps to put ornaments together and make sure that everything looks nice.

Wayne Brookes who offered to help decorate the tree this year…your help made it go so much faster and smoother.  Thanks for the day that you spent with us!

Mark Phillips of Phillips Skid Steer Service who comes with his chainsaw and truck, who cuts down the tree and brings it to the Funeral Home so that we can decorate it.  Then on the day of the Santa Claus Parade he comes back, carefully loads the decorated tree on to his truck, delivers it uptown and helps to secure it in place.  Mark donates his time and his truck and we appreciate that so much!

Max Lindsay of M&M Tree Service who every year has helped by taking the tree down and disposing of it.  Max and his crew are up at the crack of dawn before the downtown gets busy so that he doesn’t inconvenience anybody.  He takes the tree down, cleans the area up and takes the tree away.  Max as well has donated his time and his equipment every year.  Thanks Max!

There are two things I know; one that everyone wants to be remembered and two, that we all want our loved ones to be remembered.  I appreciate all of the great feedback that we get about the tree and all of the calls that we received from Ridgetown to Merlin and from Chatham to Rondeau asking for names to be added.  We even got a call from someone in Port Rowan who heard about the tree and wanted her dad to be remembered…how awesome is that!

Thank you!  It’s great to be a part of your community.