Point Edward firefighters collected a truckload of donated toys to help brighten the holidays for children at Bluewater Health and St. Clair Child and Youth Services.
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It’s the fifth year of the Santa’s Responders Christmas Toy Drive, organized this year by firefighters Gavin Burgess and Justine Davies.
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“We always get a great turnout from the village,” said Burgess. “Everyone’s really giving around the Christmas season.”
Results of this year’s drive are “on par with what we usually have,” he said. Toys were stacked up earlier in the week at the village fire hall, where residents were invited to drop off new toys and gifts.
This year’s goal: collect enough toys to fill the fire service’s rescue truck.
“As long as we can fill it, we’re good,” Burgess said.
This year’s drive, launched right after Remembrance Day, involved all fire service members, “from the fire chief all the way down to the newest firefighters,” Burgess said. “It’s really a full team effort.”
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Firefighters went door-to-door, dropping off flyers, on their own time on evenings and weekends, he said.
“It’s about giving back,” he said. “If we make a couple of kids’ Christmas better, that’s why we do it.”
Most donors are village residents, but “we do get people from Sarnia, as well,” he said.
Many donors brought toys to the fire hall during this month’s Christmas in the Village, when the fire service opened its doors to serve cookies and hot chocolate as part of an annual day of special holiday events in Point Edward.
The drive started out by delivering toys to the hospital each holiday season.
“Unfortunately, there are kids in hospital over Christmas and they’re always happy to take donations to make kids’ Christmas better,” Burgess said.
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A few years later, the drive began providing gifts to St. Clair Child and Youth Services, a children’s mental health center in Point Edward.
“They’re always very, very grateful,” Burgess said.
“The need has never been higher,” said Liz Page, a center mental health counselor. “It’s just so nice to see the community rally and pull together to try and make sure everyone has something.”
The drive provides the agency with gifts for infants to teens, she said.
“A lot of our families who are struggling every year to have enough for their children” are invited to choose toys they can wrap up for Christmas, Page said.
Agency staff at the agency also can choose gifts for youth on their caseloads, she said.
“I live in the village and our fire department is just exceptional,” Page said. “They give back to the community in many, many ways.”
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