Athletes from Brownwood Middle School donated many toys to the Brown County Toys For Kids Program.

Seventh and eighth grade athletes as well as their coaches helped with gathering items for the toy drive.

BMS Girls 7th grade athletics students along with BMS Coaches Gaspard, Morehead, Harvey, McGuire, and Kennedy are pictured above with some of the donations.

Both girls and boys athletics coaches encouraged students to give to those less fortunate and presented the donation to Toys for Kids staff member, Gloria Gandara (also pictured above).

Gandara stated that the need is great this year, but the response of the community has been amazing.

“This is my fourth year with Toys for Kids.  There have been so many donations, last night was great,” said Gandara, speaking of the hundreds of toys received from the drives held by local radio stations Wednesday.  “There are 591 families registered this year with 1509 kids, so we are still in need of donations,” she said.

Gandara explained that the program is still receiving registrations, although the registration “deadline” has already past.  She said that they will still serve families in need on distribution day, even if they have not signed up for the program.

BMS Head Coach Judy Kennedy stated that the athletics department came up with the idea to have a toy drive instead of a Christmas gift exchange between the students a couple of years ago.  She said that the gift exchanges never went well, with gifts forgotten or uneven, so they decided it would be good to teach the kids “the gift of giving.”

Pictured above are 7th grade boy athletes who participated in the toy drive.

Pictured are 8th grade athletes who participated in the toy drive.