The Salvation Army in Meridian kicks off its annual Angel Tree Program

In Meridian, the Salvation Army is officially kicking off its annual Angel Tree Program, and Citizens National Bank is continuing its partnership with the organization for the program, as it sees an uptick in the number of children, they plan to serve this year.

Citizens National Bank has supported the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree Program for over 2 decades, and usually holds a celebratory ceremony to help the salvation army kick off the program, but could not this year, because of the pandemic.

Despite this, Citizens National Bank is still assisting the Salvation Army with its Angel Tree Program, by putting Christmas trees in each of its Meridian branches, and its bank locations in Philadelphia and Quitman. At those locations, people will be able to adopt an “angel” from a tree, and buy gifts for a local child for the holidays.

“The Citizens National Bank has been a sponsor with the angel tree program for multiple years now. This year they are taking 120 angels, and they’re putting them at all their different branches, and so that allows us to serve the majority of our angels. This is probably about 20-25% of the angels that we have available, --and so, they take a big chunk of that and then they’re able to help us get these angels adopted,” said Lt. Tamara Robb, with the Salvation Army.

"We have such a great community that we want to support. So, we keep that tree loaded, because there’s a tremendous need out there, and there’s a tremendous uptick with the economic climate that we have right now. So, we expect 30% or maybe even 40% more kids than we have had in the past,” said Neil Henry, Meridian Regional President of Citizens National Bank.

For those who plan to adopt an angel at one of Citizens National Bank’s locations, you must have the gifts, along with the angel tree card, returned to that location by December 10.