The annual Christmas Happiness Fund is closing in on $4,000 in initial funds raised to help ensure children across Rowan County all receive at least one Christmas gift.

From the $1,811.41 raised in the first year the Christmas Happiness fund was created nearly 70 years ago to last year’s total of $39,566.78, each year a little more joy has been spread to children who may not have been able to enjoy the holidays as much without it.

The Post collects money from the community before passing donations along to the Rowan chapter of the Salvation Army, which distributes the funds. Any donations received after Christmas are used to start next year’s fund. Donors can use the opportunity to name a person or persons to be memorialized by their gift. Donations can be dropped off at the Salisbury Post offices at 131 W. Innes Street or by mail at Christmas Happiness Fund, c/o Salisbury Post, PO Box 4639, Salisbury, NC 28145.

Throughout the drive, the Salisbury Post will highlight various contributors’ causes and those who they memorialize. Please consider taking this opportunity to honor a loved one and make a difference in the lives of lower-income families in Rowan County, so that they can give their children a Christmas worth remembering.

The contributions kicked off this year with a donation of $150 in memory of Petie Palmer by the Insolite Book Club. Palmer was one of the group’s founding members 36 years ago. A statement from the group said she was “loved by all. She was so full of life, the perfect hostess, singer, dancer and model (even in her 80s), and played golf and tennis for years.” The widow of Hank Palmer, to whom she was married for 65 years, she wad the co-owner of Palmer Stationers. In her later years, after Palmer died, she married Pete Foster.

Palmer sang in the choir at First Presbyterian Church for may years, and she and Hank were founders of the Piedmont Players and the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters. She had nine grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.

For years, Palmer supported the Christmas Happiness Fund and encouraged the Insolite Book Club to do so as well, believing no child should go without a Christmas gift. In her memory, the club is continuing that support.

Other donations to date include:

• Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Brown — $200

• The Osborne family — $100

• Blessings to all! Bill and Peggy Godley and employees of Godley’s Garden Center and Nursery — $2,000

• In honor of Tom, Colleen, Shawn and Hannah, by Don Conner — $200

• Salisbury Lions Club — $100

• In honor of Father Robert Black and family, by Art and Lynn Bolick — $500

• In memory of Dewey and Julia Miller, by Judy Miller — $25

• Anonymous — $100

• Howard Brown Agency — $100

• In memory of Mark and Wilma McKnight, Claude and Ruth Benson and Jeff McKnight, by M.D. and Mary McKnight — $300

• In memory of EarL C Alexander, by Carolyn Alexander — $100

The current total is now $3,875.