Each year I have a Christmas tree I call the memory tree.
It’s filled with ornaments from family photographs as well as ones from places we’ve visited. There’s also multiple ones I started collecting in 1997 – the Easterseals Ornament of Hope. That particular year featured the Ezekiel Harris House.
Today, I completed what I could of my collection.
Easterseals is closing, and the ornaments made by the Charleston Mint, depicting historic Augusta sites are only $3 each.
I think 1997 was the first year for the ornaments. I remember writing a story about the launch and going to a splashy news conference where they unveiled them. They were named the city’s official ornament. At the time, the organization was located on Reynolds Street near 13th.
There, adults with disabilities received job training and many of them worked on site.
One of the big stories I covered in the late 1990s for The Augusta Chronicle was Easterseals losing its home to the now defunct Georgia Golf Hall of Fame, which was built on the site.
Easterseals was booted out of the building and a search for a new home ensued. I remember interviewing then director, Avys Billue and Sheila Thomas, who later took over as the director, numerous times over several months. The building needed to be an industrial space with bay doors. It needed to be on the bus line because many of their clients relied on public transportation. And of course, they had a budget they had to keep.
I think I got a few front-page stories out of the saga including when they later relocated to the former Colonial Bakery building on Wrightsboro Road.
I remember doing a story around 2013 about a program for high school seniors in cooperation with the school system. After that I fell out of touch with the organization for a decade. The last story I did was for the 2024 Ornament of Hope.
I already had several ornaments including Sacred Heart Cultural Center, Church of the Good Shepherd, The Federal Courthouse, the Imperial Theatre, the Augusta Arsenal Gatehouse, the Butt Memorial Bridge, the Boyhood Home of Woodrow Wilson and Augusta’s skyline, the 2024 ornament.
Of course, some years have sold out and I may never have all of them, but I did add several including the Partridge Inn from 1998, Enterprise Mill from 2005, the Augusta Chronicle news building from 2010, and Meadow Garden from 2015.
The organization still has multiple crates of ornaments from over the last 29 years; there are also ornaments from Thomson, Georgia as well.
If you want to add a little of Augusta or Thomson history to your tree, call Easterseals at (706) 667-9695 in the next couple of days because they won’t be around long. The Easterseals office is located at 1930 Highland Ave., Suite B.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s won multiple Georgia Press Association awards, is the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award and was named best local writer by readers of Augusta Magazine in 2024 and 2025. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here
