Even in a town as prosperous as Oak Harbor there are still many families who need help making ends meat. The Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) is tasked with helping those families based upon need. DSHS helps by providing cash assistance, food stamps, and access to medical help. These services can be invaluable toward helping a family get back on their feet. Unfortunately this means that special times of the year such as Christmas can still be very lean for these families who just don’t have the extra money for Christmas gifts. Seeing this need, Soroptimist International of Oak Harbor stepped in and started the Tree of Hope program. Tree of Hope is a service project designed to help needy families provide Christmas gifts to their children. DSHS starts by sending their clients information on the Tree of Hope program that includes a wish list for parents to complete for each child. The wish list includes the child’s first name, age, clothing and shoe sizes and a list of items the child would like for Christmas. These lists are given to the Soroptimists who issue a control number for each child, then the hard work begins. Every 
Soroptimist Club member goes out into the community asking people to take the name of a child and purchase gifts for that child. In an average year there will be 300 to 500 children on the list but this Christmas season there were over 800 children in need.
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