East River Plaza Surprises 12 Families with Free Christmas Trees

East River Plaza on behalf of the Blumenfeld Development Group, Inc. (BDG) and Brookfield Properties presented an early Christmas gift to 12 families by raffling off free Christmas trees that were used by the Plaza for the one-day event. Plaza visitors had the opportunity to enter the free raffle when visiting the festival, which included performances by nationally renowned Vy Higginsen’s Sing Harlem and pictures with Santa.

“We are committed to always incorporate and give back to the local communities of our properties,” said Ed Blumenfeld, President, Blumenfeld Development Group. “We were honored to host for the ninth year in a row the very talented and celebrated Vy Higginsen’s Sing Harlem Choir at our Annual East River Plaza Holiday Festival, who were inspiring, entertaining and put smiles on everyone’s face.”

Blumenfeld added, “And what better way to culminate the day’s activities than to surprise
12 lucky families with a free Christmas tree from our festival set.”

The raffle delivered a very special moment when Keith Carlson and Marek Dulka who were two of the lucky tree winners, traded their 5 foot tree with 10 year old Angel Sorey Perez who won one of the smaller trees. What Keith and Marek didn’t know was that Angel’s grandmother who passed away in March, loved celebrating Christmas -- her favorite holiday with Angel and family. This was going to be the first Christmas Angel would spend without her grandmother and was very grateful that she could go home with a large tree her grandmother would be proud of.

The Holiday Festival is a continued effort by East River Plaza to give back and incorporatethe local community into special events throughout the year, which have included: a mural painting exhibit, Save the Gates presentation and a Fall Festival.