Throughout the Christmas season, Avera Dells Area Health Center will play host to an “Angel Tree,” allowing interested participants to purchase gifts for those in need.

The project, which keeps donations local, includes a tree placed at the nurses’ station at the hospital and in the clinic.

Visitors can choose items to purchase from the pre-selected list printed on the tree’s “angels” or provide a gift of choice. “We’ve done it for a long time,” Avera employee Anne Halme said of the Angel Tree project, though she wants people to know the local clinic and hospital has trees on its campus, in addition to the ones in Sioux Falls.

“We want to make sure that all kids have a Christmas,” she said.

The donations will be taken up until about a week before Christmas, at which time the local ESA chapter will assist in the distribution through its “Christmas for Our Kids” program.