For the second year, city school is beneficiary of company’s charity golf tournament.
by Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
In 2019, James Monroe High School opened the Giving Tree, where students can shop for free for items such as clothing, shoes, accessories, feminine hygiene products, socks, underwear, and toiletries.
Last year, the Giving Tree expanded to include Tough City Suds, a fully equipped laundry facility located within the high school, where local families can wash their clothes in private.
Support for that expansion came from a $15,000 donation from Anderson Propane, which selected the Giving Tree as the beneficiary of its 2022 charity golf tournament.
Tammy Clark, a teacher at JMHS who had the initial idea for the Giving Tree, said she couldn’t imagine a company doing more for “our city’s babies,” as she calls the students of Fredericksburg City Public Schools.
So she was astounded when Mark Anderson, the president of Anderson Propane, said he wanted the proceeds of the 2023 charity golf tournament to also go to the Giving Tree.
On Wednesday afternoon, Clark, along with JMHS principal Marcus Petty, Fredericksburg Mayor Kerry Devine and division superintendent Marci Catlett, accepted a $20,000 check from Anderson Propane that will allow the Giving Tree to go mobile.
Starting this spring, a van wrapped with the organization’s logo will travel into city neighborhoods so that students and their families can shop for what they need.
“Fredericksburg City Public Schools feels like a family, and we have to take care of our own,” Clark said.
She said she is always moved by the “sense of relief” that washes over students when they see what the Giving Tree has to offer them—everything from hygiene products to prom dresses and tuxes—and that opening Tough City Suds was “a game changer” for students who may have been staying home from school out of shame over not having clean clothes.
Superintendent Marci Catlett said the division is always working hard to meet students’ basic needs so that they are ready to receive the best education.
“When families know that, it builds trust,” she said.
Anderson said Anderson Propane is “a company with a giving heart” and that he is grateful for the opportunity to support Clark and the city schools’ efforts to help students in need.
