Charity events such as food drives, walk-a-thons, and toy drives have been around for decades. Toy drives are popular around the holidays. A popular one called Toys for Tots was founded by the United States Marine Corps in 1947. Since then, it has become more common for schools and other places to start their own Toys for Tots drives. Most schools can gather as many gifts from students and staff as possible and donate everything to any charity of their choice. For the month of December, Wayne Valley did just that!

Wayne Valley Executive Student Council organized a toy drive for the school, and each grade’s student council set up a toy drive box in their designated rooms and spread the word for their peers to donate. Each grade competed to have the most toys in their box by the last day, December 14th. However, Mrs. Vacca, the Executive Student Council Advisor, sees much more than just gathering gifts and competing with other grades. Vacca says the “overall goal for the toy drive [was] to build a philanthropic spirit among the student community at Wayne Valley High School.”

On December 14th, 86 presents were counted—but a lot of donations came in after that day as well. “The junior class collected the most; but the senior class was close behind,” said Mrs. Vanatta, another Executive Student Council Advisor.

Vacca mentions that “the toys were donated on Monday to the Haledon PBA toy drive.  We gave them the largest donation by far.” This is a big accomplishment for Wayne Valley since “this is the first year the student council organized a school-wide toy drive since COVID,” Vacca follows up with. So, for this to have been the first toy drive in at least three years, it did well!

Hopefully, there will be many more charity and fundraising events in the future for students at Wayne Valley to support a good cause.