Last year, Diana, one of our wonderful maintenance team, told me that we needed to go shopping.

I said “what do you have in mind”

Her answer:  “I need Christmas decorations because we are going to decorate one of our available storefront windows and we’re going to do it honor of COTS”

What could I say except  “what a great idea!” and so our storefront decorating tradition started.  This year we had two windows to decorate, so we invited OADS to do the honors at 289 N. McDowell (by CVS).  The other window (at 279A between Kmart and CVS) we turned over to Diana, who decorated the window in honor of COTS again.  The window painting scenes were done by an artist named “Mike”, who is homeless himself.

The theme of the window is “A Child’s Christmas”.  In addition to the happy scenes of Christmas, including a tree, stockings, a giant Santa and plenty of twinkling lights,  Diana has also added information in the windows about COTS and about COTS’ Christmas activities, and how you can help out during this season.

Diana is a graduate of the COTS program, as are Steve and Dustin, who also work in the maintenance department here at The Plaza North.  They are very grateful to COTS and the Mary Isaak Center for helping get their lives back on track and this window is their way of “giving back”.   All of us believe that no child should feel left out during this holiday and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to highlight the great work that COTS does and hope that this window inspires people to donate.

Both the OADS window and the COTS window are on the Petaluma City of Lights Driving Tour.

Below, Erin from COTS, talks about the Christmas donation center.