santa – East Missoula United

Cheers to another year of East Missoula United and all of your amazing support!

2021 Holiday Gathering and Tree Lighting

We found a generous tree company to assist us with our holiday decor at the East Missoula Lion’s Park this year.

Headwaters Tree Care will be climbing the crooked tree at the park and revisiting each strand of lights. They will hang fresh lights (where needed) with care.

We’d love to compensate this generous company for their time, AND we will need to replace at least 1/2 of the lights that are hanging up the tree now. Please keep them in mind for your tree care needs.

We’re accepting light donations again. *Please Spread the Word!* It would be very helpful if you could check to be sure your lights work before you swing them by. Of course, new lights are very welcome as well. Financial donations will also be accepted to help pay Headwaters and/or buy more lights, if we aren’t able to get enough donations.

Sidenote: If all financial donations aren’t used, we’ll use them for our next postcard mailing. We promise your donation will go toward doing good for our community.

Here is a reminder of the delight the tree brought last year.

Finally, we welcome you to join us on the Winter Solstice, December 21st for a tree lighting and gathering at the Lion’s Park. Time of the event is TBD.

Light donations can be left at Lady J’s Barber Shop (she has a new location) at 3720 Hwy 200, Missoula, MT 59802. Barbershop hours are 10-5 Tuesday-Friday and by appointment on Saturday. Maybe you’ll need a fresh new cut while you’re there?

The light decorating will take place next week sometime, so the sooner you are able to drop donations or make a financial contribution, the better. We didn’t give ourselves a very big window to collect this year.

Financial donations can be made here. Feel free to leave a note in the comments if you’d like us to recognize your donation on our social media and website. All donations between now and December 21st will be used to light our community tree, and possibly bring warm drinks and snacks to our gathering on 12/21.

Click here to help light our magical tree!

Psst: We heard a rumor Santa and Mrs. Claus might be there again!

Please let us know if you’d like to help in any way with our event or decorating process. We have a lot of opportunity if you like spreading holiday cheer!

Thank you and Happy Holidays!

We had a lovely event on December 21, 2021. Mark your calendars for December 21, 2022 because we’ll do it again!

Here are a few photos from the magical evening and preparations throughout the month of December.

We want to acknowledge our helpers and volunteers. There were a few people that spent many hours at the Lion’s Park working on lights and decor. Matt at Rocky Mountain Line was especially gracious. He donated hours of time and use of his bucket truck to get that magical tree adorned.

Thank you to the River of Life church for donating cider and hot cocoa.

Santa and Ms. Claus were the most perfect addition. They almost didn’t make it all of the way into the park after being spotted at the fence by some kiddos. We hope they’ll join us again in 2022.

Thank you so much to the Lion’s who donated power and Jack Ballas for his time and burly extension cord. This community is a better place because of the East Missoula Lion’s and the park. *Psst: We were thinking it might be fun to have a skating rink!*

And, the biggest thank you to all of you who donated lights in 2021. You left them in that red bucket under the pavilion at the park. We can give ourselves a big pat on the back for making all of the pieces come together.

Remember if you’d like to volunteer to help with 2022 decor, we’ll take extra hands. We will decorate sometime after Thanksgiving, follow us on FB for event details or subscribe to our newsletter to ‘be in the know’.