Police Cadets Meghan Lacas (left) and Alexis Bradley in front of a nearly full police cruiser outside of Walmart on the last day of the cadet toy drive Dec. 12, 2020. (PETER CURRIER PHOTO)
WESTFIELD- The Westfield Police Cadets received more than 1,000 donations of individual toys during its 6th Annual Police Cadet Toy Drive to benefit students in Westfield Public Schools.
This year’s toy drive was conducted a little differently due to COVID-19. It was spread over multiple weeks with police cadets posting at locations such as Dollar General and Play Now, when normally it would have just been done at Walmart for one day.
Police Lt. Kevin Bard said that this year’s drive had the highest number of donations since the toy drive was first started. They received enough donations to give 296 children five toys each.
Donations were placed in the backs of police cruisers before being organized by the appropriate age and gender and being distributed to each school in Westfield on Tuesday. The schools will then give the donated toys to the parents of each child who will be able to unwrap their gifts on Christmas day.
In addition to physical toy donations, the cadets accepted cash, which they used to purchase more toys based on their list of in-need children. Officer Chris Coach, who runs the cadet program and helps organize the toy drive, said that Bard’s family donated $1,500 to the drive in honor of his late mother.
The $1,500 single donation gave the cadets a total of $2,500 to spend on more toys for the nearly 300 kids in-need.
