Many of a school’s tiniest students spend the holidays keeping an eye out for Santa Claus. But preschoolers at Cumberland Trace Elementary School are filling Santa’s shoes.
Each year, students bring stuffed animals from home and teachers donate them to organizations that work with less fortunate children. This year, 23 preschool students donated about 40 stuffed animals to The Medical Center’s Emergency Medical Services.
“They go into calls sometimes, even if their grandmother had a stroke and a child there is scared, they give them stuffed animals,” said Beth Schaeffer, preschool consultant for Warren County Public Schools. “They have these toys to share, and it’s a great time for them to learn about other people needing things.”
The program goes back 10 years, when Schaeffer was trying to develop a new type of Christmas tradition for students. At that time, she asked students whether they had toys at home they no longer played with and would be willing to donate. The response was overwhelming.
“Because we’ve become such a diverse population, we don’t have Christmas parties anymore,” she said. “We decided it was a good time to start children with community service.”
The recipients have differed over the years. Students have donated animals to the Bowling Green Police Department, which gives stuffed animals to children who are taken from bad homes.
This year, emergency medical technicians have toys on hand when they’re called to a scene. They give them to children who are sick or injured, who have been involved in a fire or car accident or whose parents need medical attention.
“Anything that we can do to get on the level of the child to make them feel more comfortable, it helps us handle the situation better,” said Randy Fathbruckner, director of The Medical Center EMS. “And it makes it less stressful.”
Other volunteers also have donated stuffed animals to EMS for the past 10 years. It’s not just a Christmas event for the medical team, but it’s a year-round project.
“We work with fire departments, and sometimes people have lost everything and we can give them a stuffed animal,” Fathbruckner said. “They might have lost all of their toys, and they have this one thing they can latch on to.”
Schaeffer decided to work with Fathbruckner’s team after a parent, who works for EMS, suggested the preschoolers donate their stuffed animals to EMS.
“They decided to give stuffed animals so that emergency workers can give them out to children in need,” Fathbruckner said. “That really has a nice touch to it. It’s a real human interest story right there.”
Most children are enthusiastic about the project and are more than willing to give up their toys. Several former students still donate stuffed animals, Schaeffer said.
“Sometimes, they come in with price tags on them,” she said, “which lets me know they’ve gone out and done this just for this occasion.”
One year, a girl who had been in and out of foster care wanted to donate her one, favorite possession: a tattered, purple purse.
“She said, ‘Ms. Schaeffer, I want to give this to somebody who needs this and is sad,’ ” Schaeffer said. “I knew she had nothing at home. She was willing to give up this one little, tiny purse to somebody else, not realizing that she herself could be a recipient.”
