Ephrata high schoolers seeking toys

Drive continues through Saturday

EPHRATA — Students at Ephrata High School are hoping they can get their peers and community to give a little.

Dave Johnson's leadership class usually adopts a family, but this year senior Sydney Hurst asked the adviser if they could hold a toy drive instead. Johnson said it was a good idea, Hurst said, and told her to ask the class. The students agreed, and the drive began Nov. 30.

Donations will be accepted at school until Friday, and students will be collecting outside the Ephrata Wal-Mart from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m on Saturday. The toys will be going to Toys for Tots, and will be taken to the Marine Corps recruiting office in Moses Lake.

Money collected at school and at Wal-Mart will go to the Ephrata Kiwanis Club, who will provide necessities for middle and high school aged children, Hurst said.

She said the students are trying to fill her father's 35-foot semitrailer with the toys they collect.

"My mom and I kinda came up with the idea, and when I told the class about it, I said, 'What do you guys think?' and they were really excited about the whole (possibility)," Hurst said. "We obviously can't fill the whole semi, but if we were to get the bottom floor of it filled — it kinda gets people pumped up when they see something like that."

Hurst said she felt the toy drive will benefit more families.

The drive is also a class competition at school, and paper Christmas trees in the high school commons each show the amount of donations made by the freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors.

"We're doing pretty well," Hurst said. "Hopefully we'll bring in even more, because we really want it to go over well."

Donations came in slowly at first, Hurst added, but leadership students visited other classes Tuesday to give them all the facts and answer questions.

"And then today, all of a sudden all these toys came in," she said, noting that as of Wednesday afternoon the seniors were in the lead with money donations, but the juniors had donated more toys. "This is something that the whole class (is) really working on, and everyone wants to go over well because we feel it will benefit a lot of people."

Johnson said he has been teaching the leadership class for about 10 to 12 years, and every so often his students initiate a project, as in this case or, earlier in the school year, a baked potato feed to raise funds for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

"I always like it when students initiate it," Johnson said. "It's their idea and they want to go out and do the work. I think it's better student-initiated than teacher-initated."

Johnson credited Hurst with doing a lot of the footwork on the toy drive, as well as several other students in the class.

"I think it's really great for the community and just getting involved," senior Mary Senn said of the drive. "I haven't really done that much as volunteer work, and signing up for this class, we've been able to do toy drives, we earned money for Hurricane Katrina, over $1,000 by going around to classes and asking people, and it's just really great to get stuff for the community."

"It makes you feel good to be able to help out less fortunate kids and to know that you're doing the right thing, especially during the holiday season," senior Reid Forrest said. "It doesn't take a whole lot to make a big difference, so if you have anything at all, any good toys, bring them in and we'll take them."