Free Clinic Festival of Trees to Deck the Halls Nov. 18-21
Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer
As most of us suffer the hot humid summer, The Anderson Free Clinic is looking ahead to days of cool weather and holiday cheer. The clinic’s annual Festival of Trees, a holiday benefit that has grown a Christmas tradition, supports the work of an organization that has filled a critical gap in the community for decades.
This marks the fifth year of the event, which returns to Buckley Station from November 18-21, and the clinic’s executive director, Tammie Collins, spoke of the work on the event amid all the other daily responsibilities of the clinic with a kind of bright determination.
Community groups, offices, and departments decorate trees; the trees are auctioned; and the money goes directly to the Free Clinic, where it helps pay for care that many patients could not otherwise afford. Collins said the event typically raises between $50,000 and $80,000 a year, and that sponsors cover the costs, allowing the proceeds from tickets, trees, wreaths, and the silent auction to flow back into clinic programs.
That matters because the clinic tends to be visible only to the people who need it, and even then not always as fully as it should be. The Anderson Free Clinic has been around since 1984, when a group of doctors, seeing mill workers being laid off, opened a small operation on St. John’s Street. It has been on Fant Street since 1999, and now offers medical, dental, vision, mental-health, pharmacy, wellness, physical therapy, acupuncture, women’s health, and more, all under one roof.
The Festival of Trees is not merely a fundraiser but a way of making the clinic legible to the town. Collins said people often drive by the building without realizing what happens inside it, and the event gives Anderson another chance to discover that the clinic is serving the community quietly, continually, and across a remarkably broad range of needs.
The week itself is designed with a cheerful abundance of events that holiday fund-raisers require. November 18 begins with a free public day and children’s choirs from area schools. that night brings a girls’ night. Nov. 19 features a luncheon, now with an added holiday fashion show. Nov. 20 is once again free during the day, with more children’s choirs, followed by the Gala that night. Nov. 21 morning closes with an appearance by the Grinch, who, one is told, has already booked his flight.
The schedule also folds neatly into Anderson’s larger holiday calendar, with the downtown Christmas tree unofficial lighting set for November 20, making the Festival of Trees more than an isolated event; it becomes part of the season’s downtown architecture, a reason for people to come downtown, linger, and maybe begin the holiday in a charitable mood.
The clinic is still seeking tree decorators, and Collins said the information is available on its website and Facebook page, with submissions due by the end of September.
She also said regular support need not be grand to be meaningful. Volunteers are welcome in the clinic’s pharmacy and medical records, donations can be made online, and even excess produce from a garden can become part of the clinic’s wellness market, where patients receive healthy food alongside medical care.
What the clinic is asking for is participation. The Festival of Trees is meant to be festive but practical, a holiday ritual that helps keep the lights on in a place where care is delivered to people who may not have many other options. In a season that can too easily become simply decorative, the Free Clinic is trying to make it useful.
