400 Toys in Five Days

Thanks to Freehold Township’s , the holidays will be a little more special this year for less fortunate families. 

For the past 15 years, the Catena school has held an annual holiday toy drive. This year however, Catena Staff and Project EAT committee members, Terese Gerula, Laurie Pearce, and El Mudd took the holiday collection the next level by motivating students with a story about unconditional giving. 

“The students were eager to share that they were willing to do chores and even do without an item on their own wish list in order to donate a toy to the collection,” said Geruala.

Catena staff members also participated in the collection and together added approximately 100 toys to the drive. 

“Students and parents reacted very positively to the toy drive. Students waited eagerly to hear how many toys were collected each day,” said Gerula. “The collection was a wonderful experience for our students, parents, and teachers.  It is something that we are very proud of.”

This year’s toy drive is not the first fundraiser headed by the Project EAT committee. In November, headed again by Gerula, Pearce, and Mudd the school participated in two-part food drive for the which resulted in the donation of 1,300 food items and over 20 frozen turkeys.