A crew of volunteers fulfilled holiday wishes for underprivileged kids in the Denver area by purchasing gifts from a local mall’s wishing tree
The Denver chapter of CommuniTyler met on Saturday at the Flatirons Mall. The original plan had been to build a greenhouse, but after two back to back snowstorms covered the ground in over a foot of snow, we had to resort to Plan B: partnering with A Precious Child. A Precious Child is an organization that helps provide presents to underprivileged children at Christmastime as well as other necessities throughout the year. In the Flatirons Mall, A Precious Child had several “gift trees,” decorated with paper ornaments. Each ornament had a brief description of a child with items from his or her Christmas list. We each picked an ornament off a tree and spent a few hours trying to find and purchase items from our child’s list.
Ty’s spirit was palpable for those few hours. Not only were we serving the least of those around us, we were connecting with old friends and making new ones, of course! It turned out CommuniTyler Denver was “a great place to meet people.” Everyone seemed to float from shop to shop with a big Tyler grin. One of the highlights of the event for me was telling my new friends about Tyler, as there were several people who had only know Tyler briefly or had never met him. It has been hard for me to talk about Tyler over the last six months, but on Saturday it was a little easier for the first time. I really enjoyed sharing Tyler’s personality, passions, quirks and intelligence with others, and recounting some of the wonderful adventures I had shared with him.
CommuniTyler Denver was a great success and I’m excited for the next event in May.
We miss you Ty.
−Marty Combs
