Courtesy | Michelle Wollet
In front of Michelle Wollet’s real estate business in downtown Hillsdale is a small Christmas tree her husband Joe built — a simple wooden frame covered with chicken wire and Christmas lights. Gloves and mittens hang from clothespins, covering the tree like ornaments. A handwritten sign reads,
The Giving Tree
Have One, Leave One
Need One Take One
Wollet said she and her husband created the Giving Tree in 2019 around Christmas.
“My goal was just to have people put things on the tree, and then people who needed things could stop by whenever they needed it and just take it off the tree,” she said. “We do have a homeless population in Hillsdale, and I just thought that would be a way to get them some of the little items that they need as they’re walking by.”
The tree has been up ever since.
“It has worked out really well. It has brought the community together,” Wollet said. “People come and drop things off at the office so I can put them on the tree, or I’ll pull up one day and there’s a bunch of new items on the tree.”
Wollet said many of the people who give or take from the tree remain anonymous, but she said this was part of the design.
“I wanted it to be a nice way of getting things out to people without them having to ask for it or stand in line someplace for it,” she said. “I believe that you should do good deeds that are just done for the grace of it, not for the public to know what’s being done.”
Karen Roth, a friend of Wollet’s, brings in bags of mittens and hats her sister-in-law Liz Roth crochets.
Liz has high-functioning special needs, and she quilts, crochets, and grows a beautiful garden, Roth said.
“She’s always giving all of her stuff away because she just does it for a stress relief for herself,” Roth said. “She had asked me if I knew of any place that she could donate all of her mittens and hats and everything to, and I remembered the tree that Michelle had.”
Roth, who is a social worker, said she has gotten to see the fruit of her sister-in-law’s labor.
“There was a lady at Kroger, and she was checking out, and she dropped her glove. My client that I had with me picked it up and handed it to her, and she said, ‘Oh, I got these downtown. If I lose these, I don’t know what I would do — they’re my favorite pair,’” Roth said.
Roth asked the woman if she had gotten them from the Giving Tree.
“She said, yes, she did,” Roth said. “I told her, ‘Those are probably some mittens that my sister-in-law made. She donates them to the tree.”
Michelle Wollet refills the tree a couple times a week. Joe Wollet said they load it during the day and sometimes return the next morning to find it nearly empty.
“Nothing makes us happier than seeing our tree empty,” he said. “If we fill it and it’s empty, then it’s going to the right people.”
The tree has included T-shirts and toiletries during the summer, as well as coats and snowsuits for children in the winter. He said these are some of the first things to go.
“Especially through the cold season it was just nice that they had their own set of gloves, their matching hat, possibly a scarf and things — something that they could call their own — and it was of good quality, and it was theirs,” he said.
The generosity of people in the community has allowed the Giving Tree to continue year round.
“We’ll show up to the office, and there will be a large plastic garbage bag full of some of the most beautiful knittings, and they’re all anonymous,” he said.
Michelle Wollet said she believes acts of kindness are best done quietly and is glad for this opportunity to give back to the community.
“It’s a good way for Hillsdale to show that it is the people,” Michelle Wollet said. “It is a good way of living, and we do take care of one another, and we’re doing it out of the kindness of our heart and not for the notoriety of it all.”
Giving does bless the giver, though, according to Roth.
“When you give instead of always receiving,” Roth said, “that makes your heart healthy. So always pay it forward.”