By Sue Wambolt, Contributing Writer
Westborough – With Christmas just a month away, stores are beginning to overflow with holiday decor, radio stations are filling the airwaves with Christmas music and neighborhoods are starting to don colorful lights and wreaths. It won's be long before Christmas trees will perch atop cars and make their way into living rooms across town. Before heading out to purchase a tree just anywhere this year, consider buying it at the Christmas Tree lot run by the Civic Club of Westborough on East Main Street cross from Arturo's Restaurant. Here, in addition to Canadian Balsam Christmas Trees (shipped from Nova Scotia), wreaths with bows, roping, tree stands and tree disposal bags to catch the needles will be available for purchase. The sale will run from Saturday, Nov. 26 through Saturday, Dec. 24.
Vice President of the Civic Club Bill Coveney explained that the Civic Club puts the money raised to good use in Westborough.
“Every single customer at our lot has a hand in helping all of these great causes and is helping to give back to their community,” Coveney said.
According to Coveney, the fund-raiser “is very much a community event, with over 1,000 volunteer-hours provided. Trees are delivered Saturday, Nov. 26 and Saturday, Dec. 3. The high school hockey team will help unload one truck, and the high school football team will help unload the other. We will have multiple Boy Scout troops and students from the National Honor Society volunteering to help untie the trees, price them and get them on the tree racks.”
The Christmas Tree Sale is the only fund-raising event put on by the Civic Club and its proceeds are used to help local causes. Beneficiaries from the 2010 Christmas Tree Sale include Boy Scouts; Girl Scouts; Knights of Columbus” Thanksgiving Dinner; library passes and two new benches outside; Project Graduation; Gibbons Middle School; Hastings Parents Group; Child Protective Services; Community Harvest; Garden Giving Tree; Assabet Valley Pastoral Counseling Center; two portable sound systems for the Westborough Music Program; Westborough Amateur Hockey; Westborough Community Chorus; Westborough Historical Society; boys and girls Little Leagues; five Westborough High School scholarships; Westborough Unified Sports; Westborough Food Pantry; Westborough Community Land Trust; Hot Summer Nights; Model United Nations; Senior Center Dance; Youth Football; fish stocking at Sandra Pond; Westborough Fine Arts Education Center and two Eagle Scout projects.
Over the years the Civic Club has also made many one-time donations. Some of these include automatic defibrillators in the schools, donations to the Police and Fire departments, a contribution toward the purchase of a mini-bus for the Senior Center and, last year, two new scoreboards to the High School.
On weekends during the sale, Santa Claus shows up with a little something for the elves on the East Main Street Christmas tree lot. In addition, vocal groups and a jazz quartet from the high school music department will come play Christmas Carols Sunday, Dec. 11.
