It’s dusk, and a child walks down the sidewalk with her mother to see something she’s been waiting to see all season. She passes college students drinking hot chocolate. She passes other children on bikes. She finally sees lights on trees that confirm that it’s finally the holiday season. These lights belong to the 125+ Christmas trees that make up the Tinsel Trail.
The Tinsel Trail is a project of Tuscaloosa’s One Place, a local resource center that helps families and individuals in need through various programs. Money raised from the Tinsel Trail go back to TOP’s general funds to help fund existing programs and start new ones.
This is the fourth year of the Tinsel Trail in Tuscaloosa, and it has grown each year. 89 trees were purchased the first year, 113 trees were purchased the second year, and there were about 120 trees purchased last year. This year, there are over 125 trees.
Trees are purchased by local businesses, organizations and individuals who either decorate the trees themselves or donate them to others to decorate. It provides advertisement for the organizations and businesses that purchase and decorate them for five weeks while the money goes to a good cause.
Over $25,000 has been raised in the past, and since it has grown even more this year, they are expecting a little more than that.
The Tinsel Trail introduces the Christmas season and provides Christmas trees for the community, especially those who cannot always afford a tree themselves. Sometimes their budget doesn’t allow them to buy their own tree decorations, so they enjoy the 120+ decorated trees the Tinsel Trail has to offer.
Something Amanda Waller, Executive Director of TOP and co-chair of the Tinsel Trail, has noticed was how much the Tinsel Trail strengthens families.
“We have had a family with a single mom with multiple kids who called and talked about how good it was to be able to bring her kids to something that was free and that the kids really loved,” Waller said. “They could go back and enjoy it whenever they wanted.”
The Tinsel Trail is not only a popular attraction for kids, but for college students and adults as well. There could be college kids eating pizza at the picnic tables on the trail, children riding bikes, and there was even a wedding on the trail last year. Families, kids and community members could walk the trail a hundred times, and each time, see something different.
The idea of having a Tinsel Trail was first brought up by a TOP board member in the summer of 2013, and by that November, they had accomplished the very first Tinsel Trail, Waller said.
Local organizations help with the execution of this event. Delta Sigma Phi fraternity helps with the actual labor of putting up trees, as it is their yearly service project.
“We decided to volunteer ourselves to help, as setting up all the fence and putting up all the trees is not a task that can be done alone,” said Carter Raha, president of Delta Sigma Phi. “We pride ourselves in the joy the completed project brings to the community.”
“There is a lot of money spent during the holidays and it’s great to have something that’s free that families can enjoy doing together,” Waller said.
The Tinsel Trail has already been officially opened since November 21, and will be up for everyone’s enjoyment until January.