The spirit of the holiday season and the generosity of the community were evident this month at TEAM’s Toys 4 Kids store on Main Street in Ansonia.
Valley residents came through once again for the nonprofit’s annual toy drive to help their less fortunate neighbors put gifts for their children under the Christmas tree.
Monday was the toy drive’s last day. Clients arrived by appointment to “purchase” toys, using color-coded tickets for money.
Toy donations were on par with last year, TEAM staffers said.
“We’re serving 1,300 kids (in) 700 families this year,” said TEAM employee Trish Wigglesworth, who was overseeing the busy “toy store” operation on the second floor of 153 Main St. Friday.
“(Each year) we collect about 10,000 toys in six weeks,” she said. The amount of toys collected this year was approximately the same as last year.
TEAM is a community action agency based in Derby.
Parents and guardians who participated met income eligibility requirements.
The Valley Now: A 2015 Snapshot, shows the number of households below the poverty level in the lower Naugatuck Valley ranges from 5 percent in Shelton to 14 percent in Ansonia.
TEAM had 140 toy drop-off sites throughout the Valley, Wigglesworth said, and more than 200 volunteers to make the yearly effort a success.
Parents appreciated the opportunity to shop for newborns through age 12.
Hope Lanzieri of Seymour, a single mother of four, was shopping for three of her children. She said her oldest turned 13 and was no longer eligible for the program.
She said she was grateful that TEAM’s toy drive has helped her provide for her children for Christmas in the past.
“It means a lot,” Lanzieri said. “They do a lot for a lot of people.”
Shelton first responders were among volunteers who help deliver donations to the store. Other volunteers sorted the toys and categorize them by age.
On Friday, senior culinary students from Emmett O’Brien Technical High School in Ansonia dropped off 401 toys they had collected from students and staff.
They were escorted by teacher Lou Fusco, who dressed as Santa.
“We had a challenge this year where the shop that collected the most toys would get a holiday lunch,” Fusco said. “Culinary won, and now the other shops are going to wait on us (for lunch) in January.”
Fusco said the competition worked out really well, because the school collected twice as many toys as in previous years.
Senior Ashley Baldassare of Ansonia said she enjoyed the challenge and it was for a good cause.
“It’s nice for the holiday season to give back,” she said.
