CHCH Christmas Toy Drive

The CHCH Christmas Toy Drive is well underway. For the past five years, we’ve partnered with Eastgate Square and the East Hamilton Optimists to support families in need.

This year, there is a push to collect gifts for teen girls and boys.

Local highschool students volunteered their time today to wrap gifts for those in need.

Deborah Zagar is a public health nurse and executive director at Homefront Cancer Services.

10 years ago, she teamed up with Barbara Miele, Executive Director at Eastgate Square.

Each year, they bring in more than 100 students to help wrap gifts.

This year though, they stepped it up a notch to support the CHCH Christmas Toy Drive.

So, these kids are working to change that.

Deborah worked with a fellow nurse to determine what items a teen could use.

Inside the boxes are personal care items, snacks and a few things to keep warm on a cold day.

Throughout the holidays, teens from 14 area high schools will volunteer their time to wrap your gifts at Eastgate Square for a small fee.

All the proceeds go back to Homefront Cancer Services in Hamilton.

You can drop off new, unwrapped toys at CHCH, at our Hunter Street entrance in downtown Hamilton, or drop something off at Eastgate Square in the city’s east end, and the toy drive is also in Welland this year. So if you’re in Niagara, you can drop them off at Santa’s Village in Seaway Mall. There are a number of ways to donate this year.