Sites are always encouraged to reach out for donations to assist with Resident Programming.  The donations some sites acquire are truly amazing.  Below Jasmine Price, Manager, Pelican Point shares how she was able to secure a donation of toys for the families in her community.  She also shares an appreciative thank you comment from one of her residents.

 

I searched the internet for organizations that did toy giveaways in the community and found that the Bay County Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots program was accepting applications from organizations who were in need and possessed a 501(c )(3). On the application it asked to provide how many kids are in need of toys. I generated a report in Onesite that listed all the children by age to get the total number of kids that live in our community, I only provided numbers and did not disclose personal information. I applied in October and got a response from the organization in December. The residents were not aware that this was happening so it was a surprise.

 

We had to pick the toys up from where they were being distributed from,  so myself, Jack Laspee (maintenance supervisor) and Stephanie Thomas (courtesy officer), took our personal vehicles and filled our cars with as many toys as we could for each age group. We organized the toys by gender and ages and then filled bags with toys for each unit that had children. We then communicated to the residents that Santa came to visit and had dropped off toys for their child(ren) and asked parents only to come to the office to pick up their gifts. The toys were unwrapped so we figured it would be awesome that parents only came to pick up the toys and they could wrap the gifts themselves. As they came to pick up toys we explained to the residents then where the toys came from.  They didn’t expect to get the amount of toys that they received and were overwhelmed with joy.