Visit the Holiday Gift tree at Christie's

Fifteen Queens service organizations and businesses, including Christie & Co. Salon • Spa and the Rego Park/Forest Hills Lions Club are participating in Life's WORC Holiday Gift project.
Christie & Co. Salon • Spa has been involved with the Life's WORC Holiday Gift project for close to 15 years. The staff at Christie's has hung Life's WORC snowball shaped cards on their tree. Each card has been personalized for an individual under Life's Works care. Cards introduce gift givers to the resident, listing their age, clothing size, wish list of gifts and some personal information. Clients or members of the public can come into the salon, choose a card and buy a gift for that resident.
Like Christie's, Sovereign Bank at 993 Franklin Avenue, Garden City, has hung cards from residents on their Holiday Gift tree so that anyone who wants to give a gift can take a card and buy the desired gift.
Each year, The Rego Park/Forest Hills Lions Club adopts a group home, and after discussing the needs of residents with Life's WORC, receive wish lists from them. This year the Lions Club decided to arrange bus trips to either the movies or a bowling alley for group home residents, whose ages range from ten to 41-years-old.
&#8220We're a small club with 34 members but we're proud to be involved with Life's WORC. It's an important organization that does wonderful work,” Sher Sparano, of the Lions Club said.
Request for gifts come in round holiday snowball cards that contain each resident's gift preferences. For example, one man wrote that he likes bowling, wants a shirt and likes to shop at Wal-Mart. A ten-year-old resident wanted to go ice skating, or bowling and enjoyed trips to Chuck E. Cheese restaurants.
Life's WORC is one of several charities the Rego Park/Forest Hills Lions Club is involved in, for example, they also supply the homeless men of St. Christopher's Inn personal gift-wrapped warm winter socks.
&#8220Group homes are such an improvement on the old, huge, institution. Life's WORC's motto is: Living with dignity growing with pride,” Sparano said.
Other organizations involved in this year's Holiday Gift project include American Martyrs Church, 79-43 Bell Boulevard, Bayside and First Edition, 41-08 Bell Boulevard, Bayside.
A spokesperson for Christie's said that this year has been very successful, &#8220but there is still time for people to come and choose a card.” The cost of gifts ranges from $10 to $50.
The program will run through to New Year's and anyone wanting information can call Jessie Miller of Life's WORC at 516-224-5441.
Life's WORC is a private, not-for-profit agency that provides comprehensive support for individuals with developmental disabilities including mental retardation and autism. It operates 34 group homes and 12 non-residential community facilities throughout Queens, Nassau and Suffolk Counties, striving to provide a family type environment for residents. The Holiday Gift project which Life's WORC has been running since the early 1990's is an opportunity for the public to give residents additional cheer during the holidays.