Residents Help Out Students with a Holiday Woodworking Project

St. John’s Meadows resident Bill Osborne received a call from his daughter asking him for a festive favor over the holidays. Osborne’s granddaughter Alison is a second grader at Seton Catholic School. Her teacher, Mrs. Stafford has an annual class tradition of decorating wooden Christmas trees that her students can bring home to their families.

This year the class was unable to do so — this is where Osborne came in.

Osborne is part of a group at St. John’s Meadows who work in the woodshop on campus. His daughter knew of Osborne and the group’s love for woodworking and helping out the community, so he was her first call. Resident members Joe Filbrich, Chris Jones, Jim Shannon, Steve Sloan, Abe Vigoda, Norm West, and of course, Osborne happily agreed and set out to make 21 wooden Christmas trees for granddaughter Alison and her classmates. The group was able to complete the project of stenciling, cutting, and sanding the trees in three days — just in time for the class to decorate before the holiday break.

Alison, Mrs. Stafford, and the rest of the class were so grateful for the group’s work that they dropped off a special tree to be displayed in the woodshop. The gifted tree featured ornaments from each student.

Read about the group’s other recent community projects here.