The Middle Way House kicked off its second-largest fundraiser of the year this week. The project is called “Wrapped in Love.” Community members and businesses create tree sweaters for the trees downtown and make a donation to Middle Way House, which is an organization that supports survivors of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and human trafficking.

There are thirty-six decorated trees downtown, each one uniquely decorated with a tree sweater made by the sponsor of the tree. The trees have information about the Middle Way House on them as well as the name of the sponsor. Some of the sponsors chose to make their trees represent their own organizations, like the green Ivy Tech tree.

Erin Hollinden, events coordinator for Middle Way House says the trees are wrapped in sweaters to symbolize how the organization wraps love around the people it supports. She says the organization is much larger and more diverse than some may realize and the trees bring a lot of awarenness that might not be there otherwise.

Hollinden says the project is far from over when the sweaters are hung. They are maintained all winter long and don’t come down until March. When the sweaters do come down, preparations for the next year begin. Hollinden says that some sweaters can take sponsors up to 60 hours to complete between the time it takes to buy the fabric to fitting the sweaters to the trees.