Modest Christmas tree brings good cheer — again

An Aliquippa man
remembers being helped in
a time of need and wanted
to pass it on.

ALIQUIPPA, Pa. (AP) — Unemployed, with a baby on the way, John Sofranko didn’t want his family’s first Christmas to be a lousy one.

So in December 2004, Sofranko scraped together enough money to buy a fake 5-foot tree, ornaments and other trimmings, to give some cheer to an otherwise tough holiday season.

Three years later, Sofranko is paying it forward.

Thanks to an ad he posted online a couple of weeks ago on Craigslist, Sofranko gave away the tree and related items to an Aliquippa family who is struggling, who now needs it more than he does.

Sofranko, 28, of Hopewell Township, says he doesn’t know the name of the family that has the tree now, and he doesn’t want to know.

“It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t need to put a face to it,” Sofranko said. “It’s better for me to imagine they’re having a good Christmas than to know their situation. I just picture them one step better.”

Sofranko said that he “always felt down around the holidays,” that through college and early on in his career, he never had enough money to buy nice presents for his family, in Moon Township, and wife, Kristen, 24.

“It’s not about what you can get, but having family and friends around,” Sofranko said. “It should be about good will.”

When he lost his job at an insurance company in late 2004, Sofranko said, he pushed to make sure the holiday wasn’t ruined for him and Kristen, who was expecting their first child.

It was going to be our first Christmas together,” Sofranko recalled Thursday. “We wanted to have a nice holiday, at least be able to spend our first Christmas not remembering not having anything.”

In buying a tree and ornaments at an area Wal-Mart, Sofranko remembered thinking, “Oh my God, dude, this is all the money I have.”

Sofranko said the holiday turned out pretty well despite the hardships he was going through.

And life got much better. The Sofrankos had a healthy boy. In August 2005, John Sofranko started work at UBS Financial Services in Pittsburgh.

And this year, as the holiday season grew closer, the Sofrankos decided to put up a live tree, meaning the old tree wasn’t needed.

Instead of throwing it away, though, Sofranko thought, “Maybe give it to someone who needs a happy Christmas.”

So on Nov. 18, Sofranko posted an ad on Craigslist that read, in part, “I would prefer whomever responds really needs this tree. If you don’t have the means to get one, I’d like you to have it. I want to help someone have a nice Christmas who might not be able to. Best of luck and may good fortune find you this season.”

Sofranko said he got between 10 and 15 responses to the ad, including a woman who said her family just moved to the area from Kansas, and money was tight.

Yet Sofranko said he was most drawn to a response in which a relative told of an Aliquippa woman who is raising a 4-year-old child and works in a local fast-food restaurant.

Sofranko said the woman’s sister-in-law picked up the tree and related items, and also toys, ornaments, lights and other items donated by a Hopewell Township family, who also saw Sofranko’s ad.

“For a kid who doesn’t have a lot, that could mean a lot,” Sofranko said.

“I did my good deed, and I’d like to do it again,” Sofranko added. “It made me feel good.”