Every year, the BACC hosts a toy drive that provides Bay Area underprivileged children with an impressive number of gifts for the holidays. Thanks to the generosity of the community and all those who donated, we were again able to completely meet the needs of the participating agencies and provide toys for thousands of local children this holiday season!
This year, we expanded the reach of the toy drive. Under the direction of community service organization XCED (a charitable group primarily comprised of Bay Area middle school and high school students) we set up bins in businesses like Target, Subway, Lucky’s, and local schools for several weeks prior to the event to enable more people in the community to donate.
To illustrate the effect made by this year’s toy drive, here are the results by the numbers:
- Over 1,200 – Toys given in this year’s toy drive
- Over $1000 – donated to the toy drive in addition to all the toys
- Over 50 – Bay Area teens involved in the toy drive
- 4 – Years running for the BACC/XCED toy drive
- Over 3,000 – People in attendance at the BACC holiday celebration service to witness the XCED toy drive presentation and sponsor acknowledgement
- Over 7,200– Toys donated in the last 4 years
The following is a quote from Sleep Train, one of this year’s most involved and contributing sponsors:
“The Sleep Train Foster Kids Program is excited about the great work that XCED is doing on behalf of local foster kids through their generous effort to collect toys for the holiday season. It’s heartening to see teenagers get involved in their communities and reach out to their peers. Programs like XCED help to build a more engaged society and create future leaders. Thanks, XCED!”
- Christy Balancier from Rebekah’s Children Services – “This was an amazing service, and I cannot describe how impacted our entire organization has been by your generosity.”
- Lisvet Carillo-Herrera from Santa Clara Social Services – “We did not anticipate the overwhelming amount of toys. We had to send another truck to collect all of the toys. We are so thankful that you thought of us, and the teenagers will love the gifts and gift cards.”