A sharing tree, a sleigh of gifts

Some Latah County children will receive gifts this holiday season thanks to the Sharing Tree at the Palouse Mall in Moscow.

Janie Nirk, 84, started the Sharing Tree in 1986 to help children in need celebrate the holiday season with presents in hand.

“This is my Christmas gift,” Nirk said. “To see a smile on a kid’s face on Christmas morning.”

Every year the tree is adorned with tags that represent a Christmas present waiting to be purchased for a child in need in Latah County.

This year, 176 tags hung from the tree, said Jo Minden, a longtime Sharing Tree volunteer.

Minden said children from Troy, Deary, Potlatch and Genesee will receive presents from the Sharing Tree this year.

Parents fill out an application form stating what the children want for Christmas. Nirk and volunteers receive the requests and write them on tags to be hung on a Christmas tree inside Palouse Mall.

Shoppers at the mall then take the tags, fill the requests and put the presents on a sleigh, which Nirk’s late husband built, next to the tree. The presents are then delivered to each town and parents pick up the gifts.

If shoppers are not able to purchase the gifts, Nirk said she and volunteers try to fulfill the request with the donated money they receive. All tags were filled this year.

Minden said each child receives clothing, two toys, a book and a family game. The child’s family also receives a gift certificate for food.

Minden said LEGOs and dolls were some of the popular items this year.

Nirk said she borrowed the Sharing Tree idea from a Spokane mall in the 1980s. Nirk, who taught home economics and economics in Potlatch for 33 years, said she received a $100 grant from the Idaho Education Association to start the Sharing Tree.

Minden, one of Nirk’s former students, said she has been a Sharing Tree volunteer for about 30 years.

Minden said she worked in the Potlatch School District for more than 30 years and could see the need some children had when it came to holiday gifts.

Minden said she got involved in Sharing Tree and continues to be involved in the program because she loves children and Nirk.

Besides providing holiday gifts, Minden said Sharing Tree helps families in other ways. In the past, she said it sent money to a family recovering from a fire and it bought a gas card for a family in which the mother was receiving chemotherapy treatment in Spokane.

“It’s not just at Christmas time that we do this,” Minden said. “We do things throughout the year too.”

Baret Ludiker, Palouse Mall marketing director, said the mall has housed the Sharing Tree and a space for volunteers to box and bag the gifts since the program started. She said mall staff empty the sleigh of gifts several times a day and separate them by town.

“This mall is good to us,” Nirk said.

Garrett Cabeza can be reached at (208) 883-4631, or by email to gcabeza@dnews.com.