(bright music) - Children's Service Society of Utah presents the Season of Hope Tree Festival, a holiday fundraiser supporting GRANDfamilies.

Here with more information is Encarni Gallardo Hello, Encarni.

Thanks so much for being back.

So let's start with what's happening at your Season of Hope Tree Festival.

- Thank you so much for having me.

It's great being back with you here.

We are having, this is the first time we do the Season of Tree Festival and it a small fundraiser for our GRANDfamilies program.

They are small 3-feet Christmas trees that are gonna be auctioned to the public.

They're gonna be at our office in Salt Lake City at 4500 South 699 East, Suite 200.

And we are gonna have a hot cocoa bar, we're gonna have Santa come over and crafts for the kids to do, and it's gonna be a fantastic event for families and children.

- Oh, that's great.

And let's talk about the program all of this funds, because it's a very important one.

So let's talk more about GRANDfamilies.

- Uh-huh, GRANDfamilies started in 2002 when a group of grandparents started to call the agency asking for support as they found themselves raising their grandchildren.

They found themselves being parents again.

We are the first and only program in the state of Utah supporting grandparents and relatives that are raising the relative child, most of the time because a problem with drug use of the adult child.

And we help the grandparents get through the legal barriers that they find when all of a sudden they have a new little kid at home and they find out that they cannot take them to the doctor, they cannot enroll them to school because they're not the guardians of this kid.

So we do support them through all that process and then understand what does it mean to have a member of the family that is going through some drug use problems.

- Okay.

And I'm sure it's gone up, the needs.

So thank you so much for what you're doing and good luck with the fundraiser.

- [Encarni] Well, thank you so much, Mary.

- And if you'd like to know more about that fundraiser for the GRANDfamilies Program from the Children's Services Society of Utah, it's the Season of Hope Tree Festival, December 1st from 5:00 to 7:00 at 699 East 4500 South, Suite 200.

Go to cssutah.org.

cssutah.org.

I'm Mary Dickson.

Thanks for watching "Contact."

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