Our 2023 toy drive in memory of Evan was a huge success! With my estimated 4000-5000 collected toys, we were able to help 207 children with 10 gifts a piece, plus unlimited stocking stuffers and stuffed animals. 176 of these children were children in a foster care or an independent living home. At the end of the night, with so many remaining donations, we actually had the Wayne Township police, and a local church outreach refer us some local families in need, to be able to help an additional 31 children with gifts. All other remaining items, (yes, we still had some! were sent to the community closet of Adoption Connection to continue to help children and families in need, in foster care and in our community. I was able to collect this many toys with the help and support of my community. We had 52 bins placed around the area. Some businesses had many donations, with the Wayne Township Firehall alone, collecting almost 1000 items, and some had none, but they supported us, and placed a bin and we appreciated their efforts. The toys were a community effort and I thank my community for being able to help these children. I will say the hardest work in organizing this was done by myself. Me and my daughter Sara sorted all of these toys and prepared them for the tables. I picked up more than half of the donations in my suv, with my 2 children with me, as we do not have a truck. We did get a uhaul to pick on final pickup day and we were helped with a truck and trailer to transport the donations on setup day. We don’t have a large team like Toys for Tots, this is a small drive run by me and my husband, with my family and my close friends in memory of my son who passed away. Alot of hard work goes into this for me personally. I am pretty exhausted, but it’s worth it for me and for the volunteers who helped us to set up and also worked the event the next day. We couldn’t have done it without you. I would like to give a thank you to those people for making this drive a success.Thank you to all the businesses who collected items for us. Wayne Township Volunteer Fire Dept, Della Stoddard,Crystal Gaunt Frye, Mary Murin, Jamey Rea Condell, Shaclecha Stoddard, Jordyn Lyn, Nan Beachem, Kenny Johnson, Jayshawn Savage, Alayia Douglas, Alexa
