Carol Stream volunteers will soon take orders for 'Brittany's Trees'

While most of us are clinging to the remaining days of summer, Jim Guthrie is thinking about Christmas trees.

Yes, it's an early start to the season.

But Guthrie and his neighbors have to make sure these trees stand tall, that each string of lights shines over the holidays.

Kind of like Brittany Valene did, a little girl from Carol Stream with a "vibrant spirit" who died much too young.

"We always think about what Brittany would really want," Guthrie said.

Guthrie and his neighbors put up the first group of "Brittany's Trees" in their front yards along Matthew Lane around Christmas 11 years ago - her parents' first without their only daughter.

"No words could really console them," said Guthrie, who lived next door.

Brittany was days away from her ninth birthday in 2005 when she died from complications from a little-known, genetic heart condition called long QT syndrome.

Her namesake trees - meant as a gesture of comfort for her grieving family - have now become part of an annual tradition that extends far beyond her neighborhood.

Last year, volunteers delivered 1,850 trees around the Chicago area and raised about $38,000 for the Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndromes Foundation, a nonprofit group that funds research into her heart condition and offers counseling for families.

"This is what you're supposed to do," Guthrie said. "You step up and do what you can to help others who may be in need."

This year, the team behind Brittany's trees hopes to set up and decorate about 2,000 - a record number for the group.

They will begin accepting online orders Sept. 15, and Guthrie cautions that Brittany's trees typically sell out by Halloween. He's expecting a "very good crop" this year and plans to see for himself during a visit next month to a nursery in Allegan, Michigan.

For $45, volunteers will deliver a 6-foot-tall Scotch pine to the home, fasten the tree in the front yard with cable ties and decorate it with three strands of white lights. After the holidays, they also will take down the trees in Carol Stream for an additional fee.

Guthrie expects the group will need about 200 volunteers to pull it all off this year (to sign up, visit Brittanys-trees.com). On the Friday morning after Thanksgiving, the group will unload trees from trailers that have arrived from the nursery to the Carol Stream neighborhood and divvy up routes.

Volunteers will spend that weekend making deliveries as far north as Libertyville.

"It's just a nice way to honor her beautiful memory," Guthrie said.

He has memories of Brittany as a big sister to his three daughters, now 18, 16 and 13. She wasn't shy and wouldn't hesitate if an adult asked her to show off her Irish dancing at a get-together on the block, Guthrie said.

"She was just a very vibrant, outgoing kid," he said.