Toybox: Delivering joy, one child at a time
A native of Cape Girardeau, I am a wife, a mother to two wonderful boys (and second mom to a beautiful daughter-in-law), and soon to be grandma. After 22 years as an educator in the Cape Girardeau Public School System, I am currently employed at the Regional Professional Development Center at Southeast Missouri State University as an Instructional Consultant. Throughout my years of involvement in the Cape Jaycee Christmas Projects, fourteen years as chairperson of the Toybox Program and currently in my seventh year as chair for Christmas for the Elderly, I have seen the need for assistance for families in our community rise. In response, I have seen a community that steps up to meet those needs with support and generosity. What a blessing... I look forward to the Jaycee Christmas Projects every year and have made it a tradition in my family as a means to give back during the holidays!
From Santa's Workshop to Homes
Posted Thursday, December 1, 2016, at 6:40 PM
Recently, I had a community member stop me and ask what happens to their donations for the Jaycee Christmas Projects from the time they drop them off until they reach the hands of families or seniors in the area. What does the journey look like for the gifts that our community shares with others through Toybox and Christmas for the Elderly? Donations are collected by members of the Jaycees and taken to "Santa's Workshop" where they are tagged as gifts and sorted by gender and age. Once the workshop is full and ready for stuffing bags, members of the organization come together to fill Santa's sack with gifts according to age, gender and gift requests (and sizes for our Elderly) and place them in rows to be sorted into routes at a later date. When the shelves get low, we take to the stores to restock and wait for additional donations to come in from the community. Our project runs parallel to donations, as they are received they are used to fulfill application requests. This can be a bit unnerving when gift and monetary donations do not meet the timeline of our program, but the wonderful people of the area always come through to make sure that Christmas is full of joy for everyone in need. Once all applications are filled with toys and gifts, the Jaycees , using routes created by Mr. Howard Kinder, a retired postal service worker, organize each bag into rows to load onto "Santa's sleigh". Finally, on delivery day 22-25 vans are loaded up according to routes and assigned to a team of elves and Santa to distribute out to area neighborhoods. It is a journey that your gifts make but each and everyone makes a difference to a child, a parent, a senior citizen, and to the Jaycee Organization during the holiday season. Thank you for allowing us year after year to deliver your gifts from Santa's Workshop into Community Homes!
Delivery for Christmas for the Elderly this year is December 18th with the deadline for gift and monetary donations on December 16th
Delivery for Toybox is on December 22nd with the deadline for gift and monetary donations on December 21st
Please see the Southeast Missourian for a list of drop locations or gifts are accepted at the Southeast Missourian on Broadway in Cape Girardeau
Respond to this blog
Posting a comment requires a subscription.