It Just Needed A Little Love: An Ugly Spruce Ties A Town Together
ARUN RATH, HOST:
Now for a holiday story closer to home. Reading, Pennsylvania, is one of the poorest cities in the country. It didn't help lift spirits there when the city put up an ugly, scraggly Christmas tree in the middle of downtown. Then something remarkable happened. The city rallied around the shabby tree. If that sounds like a classic Christmas special to you, Ben Allen from members station WITF reports that you are not alone.
BEN ALLEN: Around town, they're calling it the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, with branches randomly jutting out every few feet. Mounted on a downtown street corner, the crowd of about 100 had to stand in the street to get a view.
JESSICA FLORES: I mean, it's known for being like kind of ugly, but like even still, it's just like the fact of Christmas.
ALLEN: That's Jessica Flores, a student at a local Reading school. And resident Karen Wulkohicz sums it up.
KAREN WULKOHICZ: We're the underdog city, and it's the underdog tree.
ALLEN: Back in November, city workers made their annual visit to a local farm to collect the tree, but the owner wouldn't let them drive on his wet fields. Looking for a quick solution, they found a scraggly substitute in a park. Then the outcry started.
City Council President Francis Acosta initially wanted it gone because of the way it looked, but then reversed course and saved it from the mulcher. National coverage of the tree tiff might have swayed him, but he says it also built a foundation for good.
FRANCIS ACOSTA: I mean, we have the private sector, we have community leaders, we have regular people, elected officials all together doing something that is good for the city.
ALLEN: Even though Acosta once pushed for replacing the downtown showcase with one bought with his own money, he led the event.
ACOSTA: Seriously, I think that we have all been following this Christmas tree story.
ALLEN: A local TV anchor read from the book by Charles Schulz.
UNIDENTIFIED NEWS ANCHOR: I'll take this little tree home and decorate it, and I'll show them it will really work in our play.
ALLEN: A man came dressed as Charlie Brown, and winners of a letter-to-the-tree contest even went home with Snoopy stuffed animals.
ACOSTA: And with that we count - five, four, three, two, one.
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ALLEN: Alisha Dunkelberger, a Reading resident, sees a lesson in the saga of the skimpy tree.
ALISHIA DUNKELBERGER: Look around. You don't see this on a street corner every day, you don't see it every year, you don't see it happening all the time. But if you get a lot of people to show for something and care about something, then that just shows this is the community that actually cares.
ALLEN: In recent years, large factories have shut down, and many families have left Reading to look for other opportunities. Now, less than 9 percent of adults in the city have a college degree. But for people like Keith Zielaskowski, who donated money to decorate the spruce, each twinkling light offers a way forward.
KEITH ZIELASKOWSKI: Hope for Reading - hope that we're, you know, we're not going to be the Charlie Brown of the nation.
ALLEN: Many hope Reading's story will follow the same path as the tree's - initially dismissed as ugly and poor, then held up as a symbol of what can happen when a community works together. For NPR News, I'm Ben Allen in Reading, Pennsylvania.
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