Generations Church to offer trees, Christmas presents

MOSES LAKE — The Generations Church Christmas tree lot is both moving and expanding this year. 

“We’re moving our tree lot to our church property, and then we’re going to combine it with an indoor sale, which is hopefully a new and improved garage sale,” said Patty Culver, a member of Generations church who is organizing the sales. “We’ve weeded out the junk and focused on Christmas stuff: clothes and toys and books.” 

Generations Church, formerly known as Moses Lake Assembly of God, has sold trees since 2010, Culver said. The money raised used to go to the church’s Royal Rangers youth program, but the man who led that program passed away last year and hasn’t been replaced, Culver said. Instead, the money raised will go toward sending middle and high school youth to camp and on mission trips. The church sends students to summer and winter camps at Silver Lake Camp near Medical Lake, and occasionally other trips like the NG Youth Conference last weekend in Renton, but those cost money, which not all families can afford. 

“We have quite a few kids that attend who are pretty low-income and maybe (from) single-parent homes,” said Associate Pastor Tiffanney Graham. “And they wouldn't be able to go without us helping raise those funds.” 

The camp experience is important to the students’ spiritual growth, Culver said,  

“(It’s) not only the camp, the friendships that you make, but (also) the worship and the ministering that can go on at a camp that's different than regular church,” she said. 

The students will help earn the cost of their camps by volunteering at the tree lot and the sale, Culver said. 

The trees come from a farm in Lewis County, and by the time they’re bought and shipped over the profit margin on them isn’t very much, Culver said, so the indoor yard sale is a way of supplementing it.  

Part of the yard sale will be a space set aside for children, where they can purchase something for their parents at a price their pocketbook will allow, Culver said. 

“We have inexpensively-priced toys and books for kids to buy for their siblings or things for their mom,” she said. “We decided not to do it for free because we … felt like they'd feel better if they paid a buck for something rather than just came in and got what they wanted. We'll have an area where they can wrap it, and we'll provide the paper. We'll also have an area where they can decorate a Christmas ornament.” 

The tree lot will open Nov. 28, Culver said, but because the church’s fellowship hall will be in use at Thanksgiving, the yard sale will begin Dec. 3. The hours for both will be 2-6 p.m. Wednesday-Friday and Sunday, and 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday. Both the sale and the tree lot will keep going until the trees run out, Culver said. 

Generations Church also has a free toy store that allows parents who otherwise can’t afford it to have presents under the tree for their children. 

“I work with the school district through the individual school counselors, and they get vouchers to families that are struggling,” Graham said. “So then they can come and shop for Christmas toys for their kids for free. We even provide some of the wrapping and then reach as many kids as we can.” 

In the past, the church has received toys through Toys for Tots in Spokane, but this year the need is too great, and there probably won’t be enough in that program to include Moses Lake, Graham said. So, Generations Church will step up to fill that gap. 

“We're trying to collect toys locally that we can stock the toy store,” she said. “I have some inventory left from last year, so that's going to get us started. We're just collecting donations, and we'll stock the store, and then parents can come and shop.” 

That store will be open the week before Christmas, Graham said. 

“We did the toy store early last year because we got the donations the beginning of December,” she said. “We actually found that people in the community were not prepared (and) a lot of the families, even though they were given vouchers, didn't take advantage of it at that point. But then a couple of weeks after the toy store, I was getting all kinds of calls from people that were desperate for Christmas gifts. At the toy store itself, I think we only served probably close to 100 kids, but then in the weeks following there were another 40 that we had connected with. Because of that, we decided to push the toy store back and to allow for more time for donations.” 

Anyone who would like to donate to the indoor yard sale or the toy store can contact Generations Church at 509-765-8697 or gcmoseslake.org. 

Generations Church 

431 E. Brown Ave., Moses Lake 

(behind Bud Clary Ford) 

Tree lot opens Nov. 28 

Indoor Yard Sale opens Dec. 3 

gcmoseslake.org 

    Tables laden with affordable clothes, toys and other items fill the fellowship hall at Generations Church. The indoor yard sale will open Dec. 3.