Goodwill shopper finds a meaningful tree skirt a Phoenix family accidentally donated
A family needed help after accidentally donating a precious holiday tradition to a Goodwill in Phoenix, so they reached out to media and others online, and someone miraculously found it while shopping.
The tradition involving hand prints and a Christmas tree skirt started in 2018 when Leo was born.
"I bought the tree skirt and put paint on his tiny little hand, and that was the first hand print on the skirt and every year I painted his hand and added the hand print," Leo's mother said.
It was a Christmas tradition and a symbol of a little boy growing up for mom and dad Katrina and Micah Graf.
"I had a whole vision of the entire tree skirt being covered in his hand prints up to graduating high school, and I just hope we can still make that happen," she said. "This Thanksgiving we were getting out all our Christmas decorations, to decorate our tree and I couldn’t find the tree skirt …"
The family realized they donated the tree skirt to a Goodwill at Indian School Road and 7th Avenue in Phoenix before moving to Virginia. Making matters worse, the couple is expecting their second little one and had hoped to add the baby's hand prints to the skirt.
"The thought of not having that memento, and not getting to add the new baby’s hand prints, I was a wreck," she said. Katrina knew it was a long shot, but posted to social media for help.
"I posted on a couple different sites, including Reddit, and amazingly the community showed up and even a couple of them went to the Goodwill store that I donated to see if they could find it," she said.
For a few weeks, no luck. But, that changed.
For Jasmine Still, it was just another day at a Peoria Goodwill off Beardsley Road and 83rd Avenue.
"There was just a box here, some of the workers here were just bringing new things out for the Christmastime, they were stocking some of the shelves over here," Still recalled.
Scrambling through boxes of Christmas merchandise, something caught her eye. She had seen the tree skirt days before while watching the news.
"I was going through Facebook last night, looking at some of the news stories that came up, and just happened to read it, and kind of light bulb went off," Still said.
When Jasmine made the discovery, she knew she needed to act quickly. She alerted the Goodwill team.
For her act of Christmas kindness, Goodwill also wanted to give Still a little something, too.
"We have a $100 gift card for you, in the spirit of Goodwill this holiday season, we are so appreciative that you were keeping a lookout, that you connected with our store team. It means a lot for us to be able to help facilitate this. It’s all because of you. Thank you," Goodwill said.
The tree skirt is on its way to the family.