EVANSTON — One hundred and seventy families, which includes 449 children and an additional 82 senior citizens, will have a merry Christmas this year due to the efforts and hard work of volunteers with the local Angels Among Us organization, led by chair Sarah Dean.

“I am so grateful for all the volunteers,” Dean said. “The people in Evanston are so generous; it makes my heart feel so good.”

The names of gift recipients were provided by local human service agencies. Beginning on Nov. 18 pink and blue cutout angels were hung on Christmas trees placed in Walmart and Maverik stores. The names of recipients are not given; only gender, age and a wishlist are written on the paper angels.

Residents could pick an angel to purchase gifts for and then take the unwrapped gifts to the Dunmar Inn, where they were kept until picked up by the “angels” and stored in labeled bags in volunteer Ann Bushnell’s garage until they were moved to the Uinta County Complex basement Dec. 9.

Last week, volunteers gathered at the county complex to begin the process of wrapping and labeling all of the gifts. During the week, volunteers, working in shifts, spend the entire day sorting, selecting and wrapping gifts. The gifts are placed together in a bag for the individual families, labeled and then placed in large labeled plastic bags ready for the different agencies to pick up and distribute to the families by Dec. 15.

“This town is wonderful,” Bushnell said. “We have had 30 to 40 volunteers helping us this year and some of the local businesses provide us with lunch every day.”

Throughout the week the local businesses providing free lunches were: Smith’s Food & Drug, Jimmy John’s, Ichiban, Little Caesars, Pizza Hut, El Paso and KFC.

Other businesses paid their employees to spend an entire day helping to sort and wrap gifts. Among those businesses were Union Telephone, Eaton Inspection Services, and Dr. David Russell who closed his facility to bring his employees to volunteer. According to Sarah Dean, Dr. Russell has been providing this service to Angels Among Us for four years.

One of the gift-wrapping volunteers, Catherine “Cat” Holt, had picked an angel to buy gifts for and the one she got was a teenage boy who said all he wanted was a Hank Williams poster. 

“I didn’t know where I was going to find a Hank Williams poster in Evanston,” Holt said. “I went online and got the number for the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, and called them. I asked if they had a poster I could buy and explained why I was seeking one. The museum personnel said they would send a poster free for me to give the boy.”

In the gift box, Holt received from the museum were two T-shirts with Hank Williams on them, the poster, magnets, a calendar, cards and information about the museum and a letter asking for a photo of the boy for their display. Holt was thrilled and in the boy’s gift box she added a stamped envelope with the museum’s address on it just in case he might want to send them a photo.

This is just one of the many examples of the dedication demonstrated by the volunteers in Angels Among Us. The angels make sure that every item on the recipient’s wish list is included in their gift box, which means the organization will purchase what has not been donated.