It began with a question.
What if every child in need could wake up to a gift on Christmas morning?
Forty years later, that question has become one of Arizona’s most enduring holiday traditions.
The Christmas Angel program, now celebrating its 40th anniversary, continues to bring hope, dignity, and joy to thousands of families across the state. What started as a small experiment in a single mall has grown into a movement that defines the season for an entire community.
At the center of it all is Marlene Klotz Collins, who helped dream it up in 1986 and, four decades later, is still leading the charge with the same devotion and heart.
“It never entered my mind we might be doing it 40 years later and how many children would be affected,” she says. “We just wanted to make Christmas brighter for children who might otherwise go without. It started as an idea. Now it is a legacy.”
At the time, Marlene was the new community relations director for 3TV and a member of The Salvation Army’s Phoenix Advisory Board. A few creative minds gathered to brainstorm ways to bring holiday joy to local families. Someone mentioned a radio promotion that had decorated trees with tags for cats and dogs to help a shelter. That simple spark of an idea led to a new thought: what if we did this for children?
That December, three Christmas trees stood inside Chris Town Mall surrounded by a white picket fence. Each branch held paper angels with the name and wish of a child.
“We had no idea if it would work, but people showed up. They took the tags, bought the toys, and by the end of the season, we had gifts for 3,200 children. The community’s response was overwhelming.”
Phoenix was growing quickly in the mid-80s, and so was the need. The Salvation Army had long provided toys for families in need, but resources were stretched thin. The Christmas Angel program gave people an immediate and tangible way to help.
“Every person who took a tag became part of something bigger than themselves,” Marlene says.
The following year, the program expanded to Paradise Valley Mall and Metrocenter. It didn’t take long for the idea to spread across the Valley.
“Every mall we approached wanted an Angel Tree. Every family wanted to give. It struck a chord because everyone could relate to it,” she says.
By the 1990s, Christmas Angel had become part of Arizona’s holiday rhythm. Corporate offices began hosting their own trees. Small businesses joined in. Now, several corporations host Christmas Angel trees in their offices, and some adopt and shop for several hundred Angels a year. What began with 3,200 children now serves more than 50,000 every year.
“It’s extraordinary to see what this community can do. No matter how the world changes, people still want to give.”
What most people never see is the heart behind the scenes. Each toy that leaves the mall begins a journey to one of several points of distribution, the largest being The Salvation Army’s central warehouse in downtown Phoenix. Toys donated at five of the ten participating malls are delivered to this site, where hundreds of volunteers transform generosity into magic.
“Every single toy is handled with care,” Marlene explains. “The night before each of the eleven days of distribution, about 135 volunteers gather in the warehouse to unload, sort, and organize toys according to family codes. Fourteen long rows of shelving stretch across the space, lined with labeled bags for every family, with numbers that correlate with the codes on all the bags.”
Volunteers check to ensure every child in every family is accounted for, packaging bags for hundreds of families nightly, and having them ready for pickup the following day. It is an enormous, Santa-esque operation.
“Over eleven days, we serve nearly 900 families a day. That’s about 30,000 children through our central location. When parents arrive to pick up their gifts, you can see the gratitude on their faces. For many of them, this is the only way they can give their children a Christmas.”
The families who come through those doors represent the heart of Arizona. Many are working parents balancing multiple jobs while trying to keep up with rising rent, grocery costs, and medical bills. Others are single parents, grandparents raising grandchildren, or families recovering from job loss or domestic violence.
“These are families doing everything right but still struggling… They just need a little help.”
When the program began, the need was simpler. It was about toys and holiday cheer. Today, it is part of a larger picture of survival and hope.
“Families now face so many layers of hardship. The holidays can be overwhelming when you are just trying to keep the lights on. This program gives them a moment of relief and reason to smile.”
She remembers moments that have stayed with her forever.
“One year I got a call from a teenage girl who had just moved here from South Africa,” Marlene says. “She told me she wanted her family to adopt an angel the next year, so she took a jar and labeled it ‘A Dime A Day.’ They saved ten cents every day for a year and by Christmas had enough to buy gifts for another child. That story still brings me to tears.”
There are also moments of quiet grace.
“Two dear friends of mine have supported this program since the very beginning,” she says. “Whenever we’ve run short on toys, I call them and within hours a check arrives. No questions. Just love.”
Over the years, Marlene has seen generations return.
“I meet parents who tell me their own parents brought them to the trees when they were children, and now they bring their kids. That’s when you realize this has become part of people’s lives.”
Inside the warehouse, the spirit of giving fills every corner. Volunteers laugh, cry, and share stories as they work side by side. Each gift bag represents a moment of kindness waiting to happen.
“It is hard work, but it is sacred work,” Marlene says. “You can feel the presence of something greater than all of us.”
What began with three trees now stretches across ten malls in the Valley and beyond, touching families from Prescott to Flagstaff. Yet, the program has never lost its soul. Every gift is tracked, every child accounted for, every family treated with care.
“The integrity of the process means everything.”
She pauses for a moment and smiles.
“When I see those trees filled with angel tags, I think about every child represented there. Each one has a story, a dream, a hope. And somewhere out there, someone will answer it.”
Even after forty years, Marlene is still in the warehouse… still beside the trees, still guiding volunteers with warmth and purpose.
“People ask me when I will slow down, but how could I? This is part of me. It is part of Arizona.”
“It's truly a team effort. I am so humbled and blessed to have seen the program grow into what it has become today. This is what Christmas is all about.”
salvationarmyphoenix.org/christmas-angel