Kennedy Krieger Festival of Trees

About Kennedy Krieger Institute Address: 707 North Broadway Baltimore, Maryland Website: Contact Information: – Michele Huffman (Special events manager) – (443)

Kennedy Krieger Institute Mission: “We at the Kennedy Krieger Institute dedicate ourselves to helping children and adolescents with disorders of the brain, spinal cord, musculoskeletal system achieve their potential and participate as fully as possible in family, school, and community life.”

Festival of Trees Mission: “To raise funds for the children with disabilities served by the Kennedy Krieger Institute and to continue to increase awareness of the Institute by creating a spectacular event for the greater Baltimore community to enjoy. “

Purpose of the Festival of Trees “Festival of Trees benefits more than 16,000 children with disorders of the brain and spinal cord served by Kennedy Krieger each year, raising funds for patient care, education and research. A well-known and valued international resource, Kennedy Krieger is committed to providing quality services to individuals who are mentally and physically challenged. Since its inception, Festival of Trees has raised over $15 million to support these important programs” –Michele Huffman

Our Role The event took place from November 26 th through November 28 th at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium There were three different shifts that we could sign up for – Set up – Working the actual event – Clean up

Set Up -I helped set up for the Festival of Trees event on November 21 st. Before leaving my house my sister asked if she could tag along, I agreed to let her come with me and off we went. We arrived at the Maryland State Fairgrounds around 10:00am and were ushered back to meet with Lauren. Lauren introduced us to a handful of other Towson students who were volunteering as well. There were boxes of envelopes, each envelope included a wrist band, 20 tickets, and a green ticket. Lauren wanted us to transfer these items into new envelopes, which would be handed out during the actual event more people joined us and helped us transfer a little less than 3000 envelopes

The Event

Hockey Game Luke and Adriana

Clean Up Ashley, Arietni and Courtney participated in the clean up on November 28 th from 6-10pm. We arrived to the event a few hours early so we could get the full experience. When the event came to an end we met with Michele Huffman and were assigned our jobs.

Roles and Responsibilities We were mainly responsible for packaging up the trees that had been purchased during the event. First we had to package the trees for the families that came to pick up the trees. – This entailed taking the trees down from their stand and placing them in two large plastic bags. – We then wrapped the bags together with saran wrap. – Lastly we carried the trees out to the customers cars so they could easily get them home.

Roles and Responsibilities When all the trees to be picked up had been taken care of, we began packaging the trees for delivery. – This entailed taking the trees down from their stand and placing them in a large box. – We then placed a plastic bag over the top of the tree – Finally we wrapped the bag and box together with saran wrap. Making sure we securely fastened the bottom of the box to the sides of the box. Also making sure we wrapped the invoice to the tree so that it was visible.

Roles and Responsibilities Finally we walked around the whole event and collected all of the wreaths that we saw. Even though we did not get to volunteer for the actual event we would have to say that it was still an extremely rewarding experience. When we were finished for the night Michele explained to us that she was extremely grateful we volunteered for the clean up crew. She told us that they usually have a difficult time finding volunteers to clean up because it is more physical labor and less fun. Seeing how appreciative Michele was truly made the whole experience worth while.