This time of year can be tough, particularly for children in the hospital or homeless shelters. Add on the challenges of 2020, and well, there are a lot of kids that deserve a lot of kindness.
But COVID has presented its own set of challenges for our volunteers and supporters as we had to get creative to raise money, collect donations, and distribute to those in need this year. Some hospitals were unable to receive any toys, while others were accepting only specific things on specific days – but donations were way down this year across the board so the need was even greater. With quarantine restrictions changing rapidly we were unsure how we were going to pull this off.
That’s where you come in.
Led by the spirit of our project leader, Tanis Liomin, our volunteers and supporters stepped up to find a way to make our 6th Annual Tower Toy Drive a huge success. In total, we raised more than $3,000 together which helped us deliver hundreds of brand-new toys to each of the following:
Acres of Hope – This is a homeless shelter for women and children in Placer County that does truly inspiring work. Toys were provided for all the families to give to their kids on Christmas morning.
Sutter Children’s Hospital – This was our very first hospital and has one of the largest and best Child Life programs you will find. In addition to Christmas morning, toys are also used year-round for birthdays, new patients, and their Child Life playroom. Nurses were volunteering Christmas week to come in and wrap all the presents!
Kaiser Pediatric Center – Our newest hospital we were able to expand to has a smaller, un-funded program within a larger hospital. Toys provided for patients on Christmas and year-round gifts.
“Thank you soooo much! It is appreciated more than you know!” Traci Aoki @ Kaiser Hospital
Plus, we received tremendous support again this year from our partners at Toys for Tots who added hundreds of more toys! In addition, we had a number of families that purchased and shipped up toys from our Amazon Wish List – Thank You!
With some advanced planning, we were able to get wish lists from each of the locations to make sure we purchased just what they needed (and the kids wanted). Not to mention we were able to get better deals and better gifts by purchasing over the past few months with the help of our Pumpkin Carving fundraiser.
Overall, there were too many to count – hundreds and hundreds of toys that filled multiple truckloads (and our garages) with bags and boxes everywhere! Just some of what we were able to get included:
Board games
Books
Headphones & speakers
Art supplies
Dolls
Sports toys
Remote control cars & helicopters
And so much more!
Whether you donated money, purchased from our Amazon list, or just helped spread the word – you made a difference.
We’d like to give a special thank you to our project sponsors:
We’d also like to thank a number of Tower supporters who went above and beyond this year:
Jill & Carlos Macedo
MaryBeth Miller
Maria Pietsch
Patricia & Joe Gorman
Gina & Jamie Melton
And there’s no way this project would be successful without the determination of our Tower Team:
Project Coordinator – Tanis Perez
Toy Deliveries – The Stephan Family & The Cable Family
Toys for Tots Coordinator – Jennie Stroup
Marketing – Callie Smith, AnnMargaret Dwyer, Hillari Bynum
Social Media – Melina Sanchez
So, as you enjoy the holiday season please know what a difference you made this year – a year when we all needed a little bit of help. Take a moment to think about the hundreds of kids in the hospital who will wake up on Christmas with gifts from people they’ve never met. Less fortunate families in shelters will experience the joy of wrapping presents on Christmas Eve and watching their children open them on Christmas morning. All are made possible by a community of people who care deeply about helping one another.
Thank you for making this happen. Thank you for your niceness.