By Melanie Petrucci, Senior Community Reporter
Photo/submitted
Shrewsbury – Shrewsbury Youth and Family Services (SYFS) and the Rotary Club of Shrewsbury are teaming up for this year’s annual Toy Drive. They are asking folks to consider donating a new, unwrapped toy for a child in need this Holiday season. They ask that toys be nonviolent in nature and gift cards appropriate for teens are especially in need.
“It is a most beloved project at SYFS and I am so thrilled to have Rotary participate this year,” SYFS Executive Director Christine Mowry said.
“The Toy Drive was inspired by unexpected events on Christmas Eve, 2004. Margie Lindberg, a social worker for the Mass. Department of Children and Families [DCF], was a couple hours late to her own family gathering because she needed to find a prescreened foster family for a 5-year-old little girl whose mother had just been taken to the hospital with an overdose,” explained LouAnn Geer, who was one of the Toy Drive’s original coordinators.
“Margie was frantically trying to find a foster family that could accommodate the little girl who was confused and fearful about what was happening to her. After a couple of hours making phone calls to various foster families, a family agreed to take the little girl but advised Margie that they had already eaten dinner and that there would be no gifts for her on Christmas morning because they hadn’t been prepared for her,” she continued.
Lindberg drove to McDonald’s and purchased a happy meal for the child before delivering her to the foster family. She turned around and found the nearest store where she could purchase some toys for the little girl to open Christmas morning.
Margie described these events to her family on Christmas day. Her two nephews, Rod Geer and Peter Frongillo, freshmen at St. John’s High School at the time, decided that there should always be extra toys for children in need.
The following autumn, the boys set up toy collection boxes throughout Shrewsbury to benefit needy children served by both DCF and Shrewsbury Youth & Family Services. It became a family affair.
Now in its 14th year, the Toy Drive has provided thousands of toys for children. To help, purchase a new, nonviolent toy for kids, infant to 18 years of age, and drop it off at one of the following locations: Avidia, Central One Federal Credit Union, Gymnastics Learning Center, , Shrewsbury Federal Credit Union, Shrewsbury Public Library, SYFS, and Trinity Church from Friday, Nov. 23, through Friday, Dec. 14.
For more information, visit www.syfs-ma.org.
