tLink spreads cheer with jingle boxes, Morgan Lane program

Community group, tLink, is working to brighten the holidays for Tea citizens this month.

Amanda McKnelly, a tLink organizer, said the group made up 30 bins in its second year dispersing jingle boxes. Ten individuals in their core group each brought a little something to put in the boxes like candies, homemade cookies, socks, mugs and ornaments.

“We each divide those up amongst us and drop them at random houses throughout the community. Our goal is to hopefully have those individuals reuse that bin or take those items out and put their own items in there and go around and find somebody else in the community to take it to,” she said.

They started distributing those boxes Dec. 1.

“It’s a way to bring cheer to the community. Not everybody has maybe a Christmas tradition or people don’t have individuals in this community that they celebrate the holidays with,” McKnelly said. “It’s just to brighten somebody’s day. It’s just to put cheer throughout the community.”

New this year is their adopt-a-grandparent program. They are partnering with Morgan Lane. People can follow tLink on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to find the Signup Genius link to pick a grandparent.

They are asking anyone who signs up for a grandparent to spend around $50 for something on their wish list. Then they need to wrap them, put the grandparent’s name on it and drop off at Reliabank by Dec. 20. Once they are all collected, tLink will bring them to Morgan Lane.

Through tLink, they want to target all populations in the community. The partnership with Morgan Lane is their second event targeted at the elderly community. Last winter they had an Alzheimer’s seminar.

“We’re trying to always hit all populations when we do events and things in the community,” McKnelly said.

The group, now in its third year, continues to seek ideas from community members for events to offer.

“If anybody ever has any ideas on what they’d like to see tLink do, they can always send us a message. That would be great. We’re trying to get different ideas and different topics,” she said.