GHS Juniors collect donations for Children’s Hospital

Maci Bakken and Daria Waletzki, Grygla High School Juniors, have begun a school project where they are organizing a toy drive and collecting donations for the Gillette Children’s Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. The two plan to hand deliver the donations and tour the facility sometime this spring and said, “We want to show that even coming from a small community you can make a big difference.”

New toys and monetary donations are being accepted. Toys can be dropped off from now through March at the Grain Bin Café, Grygla Coop Store, American State Bank of Grygla and Yo-Hawn’s Bar & Grill. Maci and Daria will also have drop boxes for their toy drive at upcoming home basketball games. If you have a monetary donation, please get in touch with either of the girls at the Grygla School.

To comply with infection prevention protocols and to promote safety, the Gillette Children’s Hospital requires that all items must be brand new with tags. Toys and games must have non-fabric, washable surfaces. Toys must be latex-free. Items made of soft rubber or other balloon-like rubber material can trigger serious allergic reactions in their patients. 

Here is a list of items that can be accepted:

Games

Bop-It, Candyland, Chutes & Ladders, Checkers, Connect Four, Guess Who, Jenga, Apples to Apples (original and junior), Sequence, Monopoly, Playing card games, Sorry, Trouble, Yahtzee, Heads Up

Preschoolers

Plastic baby dolls, puzzles (4-25 piece), Fisher Price people and vehicles, Matchbox cars, Play-Doh and Play-Doh toys, Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, Trains/Trucks/Tractors, Small Vehicles

School-Age

Action Figures, Barbie dolls and clothes, Lego sets, Craft kits, Flavored Lip Balm, Magna Doodles, Plastic animals and dinosaurs, Science related projects, Trains

Distraction & Therapeutic

Band-Aids (latex free; kid designs), Bubbles, Medical play kits, glitter wands, liquid wave toys, light-up toys, magic eye books, plastic slinkys, silly putty, sound books, stress balls, spaghetti balls, jingle bells, egg shakers

Infants/Toddlers

DUPLO blocks, tiger mobile by Kaplan,rattles/small infant toys, shape sorters, musical toys