Festival of Trees: 55 years of giving back to Primary Children's Hospital

Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The Festival of Trees, benefiting Primary Children's Hospital, runs Dec. 3-6 in Sandy.
• Volunteer co-chair Dana Hussey highlights the event's sensory experience and fundraising impact.
• Patient champion Livie Smart promotes bone marrow donation after her life-saving transplant.

SALT LAKE CITY — "When a person walks into the Expo Center, all of your senses will be fed," said Dana Hussey while talking about the upcoming Festival of Trees event.

Hussey is a volunteer co-chair for the annual event, now in its 55th year, and serves as a fundraiser for Primary Children's Hospital.

This year, the Festival of Trees is taking place Wednesday, Dec. 3, through Saturday, Dec. 6 at the Mountain American Expo Center in Sandy.

"There are over 500 large and small trees, so there's twinkly lights all over the place. Scones and cinnamon rolls are baking the whole time, so you can smell those as you walk in. There's beautiful music playing and entertainment that you can watch and hear, and it's just a magical place to be to start your holiday season," Hussey added.

This is Hussey's second year serving as co-chair and her fifth year on the board. She got involved with the fundraiser because, when she had her twins, one of them spent the first month of his life at Primary Children's Hospital.

"So, when the opportunity came to give back, I just jumped at it," she said.

The event is put together by a board of 80 volunteers, and everyone who works at Festival of Trees is a volunteer donating their time, "so every single penny can go right to the hospital."

Festival of Trees was started 55 years ago by a group of women in the cultural hall of a church building and has continued to grow every year since. It is now the biggest event that takes place at the Mountain American Expo Center each year, filling the entire space.

Because the event is so big, the board is working on it almost year-round. Hussey explained that organizers take about a week off after the festival each year and then start planning for the next one.

The basis of the event are the hundreds of Christmas trees that are auctioned off to the community. Each of the trees are decorated by individuals or groups within the community, and all the money made from the sale goes directly to the hospital.

Hussey shared that while the event has its core features, there are always new things happening, and 2025 is no exception.

Meet this year's patient champion

This year, the patient champion for the event, who serves as a spokesperson for the work done by Primary Children's, is 17-year-old Livie Smart.

When she was 14, Livie was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia and needed a bone-marrow transplant after her chemotherapy treatments stopped being effective. She became the first person in Utah to receive a bone-marrow transplant, using a cutting-edge stem cell transplant technique called alpha/beta T-cell depletion.

Simply put, the transplant saved her life.

During this year's event, Livie will have a booth where she and her helpers will be taking swabs from attendees so they can put their names on the bone marrow donor list.

"It actually saved her life, so she's very passionate about registering people for that donation list," Hussey said. "She's just a wonderful girl who is so humble and so grateful for the things that she's experienced at Primary Children's."

Sale items will get Utahns in the holiday spirit

Along with the trees, there are also a variety of baked goods, food, decorations, wreaths and other items that can be purchased at the event.

Hussey said the best way people can help is by "coming in and buying a ticket, but also supporting us by buying some things from our shops, purchasing an auction item, the trees that are donated, the wreaths, the centerpieces, buying a scone or some fudge, will also help."

She shared that each of the board members has a story of how Primary Children's has impacted their life, whether it's saving their children or another loved one receiving treatment there.

"I don't think there's very many people in our community who haven't been touched by Primary Children's Hospital in some way, if they think about it," Hussey added.

"And so, it's just a great thing to be able to give back."

Hussey shared that she hopes people in Utah will make attending Festival of Trees a tradition for their families.

"We know we have a lot of new people that have moved into Utah, and we hope that they will make the Festival of Trees a fun tradition for their family, and in turn, help some children at Primary Children's Hospital," she said.

Festival of Trees 2025 event information

Here's a look at the dates and times the Festival of Trees will be open this year:

• Wednesday, Dec. 3: 10 a.m.—9 p.m.
• Thursday, Dec. 4: 10 a.m.—9 p.m.
• Friday, Dec. 5: 10 a.m.—9 p.m.
• Saturday, Dec. 6: 10 a.m.—7 p.m.

Daily general admission tickets cost $10 for adults and $7 for children ages 2 to 11. Kids under the age of 2 are free and senior tickets for those 65 and older cost $8.

The event also offers a family discount, so two adults and four children can get in for a total of $40.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

Related topics

UtahSalt Lake CountyFamily

Caitlin Keith

• 

Caitlin is a trending intern for Deseret News. She covers travel, entertainment and other trending topics.