District Stories

Maplewood's Annual Holiday Toy Drive with HMFD District

Written by Liz DeMonte | Dec 21, 2022 5:00:00 AM

Maplewood's Annual Holiday Toy Drive is always a big success and one of the first orders of business for the New Student Council. Now in its 20th year, the school was able to donate lots of new toys to children in the community. This year’s drive surpassed toy donations from years past thanks to the extra generosity of Maplewood students and siblings, Julianne and Ben Meijer. The duo set out to raise money from their home hot cocoa stand, and with every dollar made, the siblings purchased additional toys to be donated to this year’s drive. Thanks to Maplewood’s staff and students, the amount donated was brought to a total of 84 toys!


Tough economic times don’t seem to get in the way of the Maplewood School community’s generosity as students and faculty pulled together to help make this toy drive a huge success. A special thank you to Ms. Hatton and Ms. Garafalo, Maplewood's Student Council Advisors, and to our Huntington Manor Fire Department and their Polar Express. The Fire Department delivers these new, unwrapped toys with the help of Santa and his friends during their annual holiday toy distribution event.


Thank you to the entire Maplewood school community for your generosity!

The Maplewood Student Council with help from the elementary school’s staff and students donated new, unwrapped toys for distribution in our community to families in need with help from the Huntington Manor Fire Department.

Maplewood students Julianne and Ben Meijer used funds from hot chocolate sales to purchase enough toys to fill 6 bags! The sibling pair set up a hot cocoa stand at home with the mission to use all the money raised to buy toys for children this holiday season.

Huntington Manor Fire Department Chief, Chuck Brady, thanked Maplewood’s students with toys in hand, for their generosity and for keeping the tradition alive in its 20th year.

Volunteers from HMFD loaded the new toys from Maplewood students onto their Polar Express to be delivered to organizations throughout Huntington to help distribute to households in need.