The first trees were a gift from Japan in nineteen twelve.
VOA: special.2010.02.23
The audience, appropriately, was Hurricane Katrina first responders, and the gift-giving was accompanied by tender stories of what audience members had done to help out in New Orleans.
In 1843 the ABS sold the first-ever charitable gift annuity, a now-popular fundraising device in which a person makes a donation to a tax-exempt entity and gets back a specified annual return for life.