The Student Government Association held its annual Holiday Toy Drive from Dec. 3 to Dec. 13. The toy drive provides the Trinity United Methodist Church Outreach Hub gifts to supply children in need within the community during the holiday season.
Led by the ninth-grade SGA, students were encouraged to donate unwrapped toys to be collected at the school offices each morning. As an extra incentive to participate, students could earn class points as well as service hour credits based on the cost of items donated.
SGA executive president Henry Harrell shares his thoughts on the importance of the toy drive.
“I think it’s good for us as Homewood to give back to the community,” Harrell said. “We get so much support from all the extracurriculars we do so it’s pretty easy for us to bring in some toys to make some kids Christmas merrier.”
Bennett Rowan, a ninth-grade SGA representative at HHS, shared his thoughts on learning about the toy drive and its significance.
“Mr. Mosquera brought it up at an SGA meeting a few months ago and sent out more details a couple of weeks prior so I thought it’d be an easy way to give back to children in need,” Rowan said. “There are many kids who aren’t as privileged as many of us at Homewood and they still deserve to have a wonderful Christmas.”
The SGA’s goal for this year’s toy drive was to beat the previous record of $3,184 in toys donated.
“The goal is obviously to beat last year’s goal, we’ve posted updates throughout the drive and get a final count on the last day,” Harrell said. “So we’ll see from the results but the overall goal is to be better than last year.”
The final results of the toy drive showed that the freshman class raised the most at $1,537, sophomores $345, juniors $1,009 and seniors $1,105 for a grand total of $3,996 worth of toys, effectively surpassing last year’s total by $812.
SGA students will assist HHS Choir Director Mr. Mosquera with loading the toys and personally delivering them to the Trinity Outreach Hub. The toys will be distributed among local families on Monday, Dec. 16th.
