The IHP Community Service Committee is back with its annual holiday gift drive, The Angel Tree, a small spruce tree put up in the lobby of the Shouse Building each year before Thanksgiving. Tags containing the first name of a child, their age, their gender, clothing sizes, and a few toy requests adorn the tree branches and the entire IHP community is invited to take a tag and buy toys for families in need 

Valerie Grande, a user account administrator in the IT department, started the Angel Tree about 15 years ago and now spearheads it as a member of the IHP Staff Community Service Committee. "The Angel Tree lets some of us at the IHP feel the Holiday spirit by giving to a child in need," said Grande. 

After providing gifts to organizations such as the Home for Little Wanderers and Wonderfund in the past, Community Service Committee member Michelle Molle’s daughter, Celeste, asked if the Angel Tree could honor clients of the Children’s Friend and Family Services, a division of Justice Resource Institute. Children’s Friend and Family Services works in partnership with individuals, families, communities, and government to pursue social justice; it provided 50 children’s names for this year’s Angel Tree. The IHP will give the gifts to recipients in mid-December so they can be wrapped and distributed to the children by their parents.