Robin Anderson has been the Festival of Trees event designer for three years. It’s a labor of giving – she spends countless volunteers hours each year coalescing the mainly Clark County design community into one body at Christmastime.
Anderson, who receives a small stipend for her efforts, is one of 30 to 40 designers who take part in the decorating of the event and the trees for the Vancouver Rotary Foundation’s Festival of Trees program each year. Anderson was invited to participate in 2002, when she was opening her design shop, Divine Interiors, in the Orchards area. Three years later, she took on the responsibility of event designer, which means just that – she designs the event, but also coordinates the efforts of legions of designers throughout Southwest Washington.
For Anderson, the process starts in April, after a much needed three month breather from the previous holiday season, when she contacts designers who have expressed an interest in returning or becoming part of the project. She sends them their paperwork, which includes getting them to commit to the days of decorating, as well the number and size of trees, garlands or wreaths that they will be decorating. Then there’s the annual designers seasonal market in Dallas, Texas, that Anderson travels to in June to pick up the decorations for the event – as well as the artificial trees, wreaths and garlands to be used in the event – 64 in all this year.
Decorating happens on the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving each year. Designers descend upon the downtown Vancouver Hilton and spend hours decorating their items alongside staff and friends who have volunteered to help out. Meanwhile, volunteers with the Rotary decorate the space itself.
Kathy Johnston, owner of North Shore Design in Vancouver, has been a FOT decorator for the past several years – one of the shop’s trees won best in show in 2002. She usually takes up to three of her six staffers along and together they put in around 15 to 20 hours on the decorating days.
The designers are given a stipend to purchase decorations for their trees but many spend their own money because some things must be purchased in bulk or just because they want to fulfill their vision – which may exceed the stipend.
Initially Johnston decided to get involved because the Festival of Trees fit her vision professionally.
“It gives us an opportunity to show what we can do,” she said. “We are a retail store, and we do a lot of Christmas ourselves. This gives us a chance to be seen.”
It takes Pam Tereza, who until recently owned a floral design business in Vancouver, a “good eight hours” to decorate her eight-foot tree every year. The $850 stipend for decorations covers her cost at wholesale gift shows, as does the $300-plus she receives for four-foot trees (she did two last year, and will do one this year), but the $125 for a garland isn’t quite enough and she spends her own money to make it sparkle.
“I enjoy expressing creativity with my natural gift of floral design – and the smiles on peoples faces as they walk past the trees,” said Tereza.
Tereza often gets a ribbon for her work, earning top placement for a martini-themed tree, which was purchased by a local business.
Anderson said the decorating days are a testament to the cooperation in the design community – “They share glue guns, they share table space. It’s a great camaraderie.”
Adding to the energy is always the prospect of making a new business connection.
“We want to bring business to those designers,” said Anderson, emphasizing that it is not a promise, but a possibility. She tells the story of one company who followed up with the local bank that purchased its tree, and ended up remodeling a floor of the bank’s offices.
“It’s challenging to make time during the holidays, but I think it’s worthwhile,” said Johnston. “It’s good for business because it lets the community see (our work), people that may have not been to our store.”
When Johnston opened North Shore Design, which also offers custom and in-home design services, she said the company decided it would mainly contribute to women’s and children’s issues.
Because of many requests, “you have to make a decision ahead of time on what you can make a difference with,” she said.
FESTIVAL OF TREES
The Vancouver Festival of Trees, a fundraiser for the Vancouver Rotary Foundation, auctions off decorated trees, wreaths and garlands after a three-day festival each year at Thanksgiving-time. The foundation primarily issues grants and scholarships supporting children and families with an emphasis on education. More than three dozen area designers participate in the decorating of the trees each year. Visit www.festivaloftrees.net.
MOVING IT ALONG
It’s not just designers that make the festival happen. Another company, Blue Bird/Allied, donates an enormous amount of space to the Festival of Trees each year, said Event Designer Robin Anderson. This year, they have donated six storage spaces. The Vancouver-headquartered company then hauls all the trees and decorations to the Hilton prior to decoration day and delivers the trees to buyers after they sell at auction.
Anderson says, “We couldn’t do it without them.”
