River Edge Green Team Saves Another 1,000 Toys!

For the 5th year in a row the River Edge Green Team had their annual toy drive with Second Chance Toys.  This is an organization that we love working with.  The gently used plastic toys are collected and given to different organizations  in New Jersey that serve children in need.  This year we worked with Joi’s Angels from East Orange and New Destiny School #6 in Paterson.  Due to the large amount of toys we collected, New Destiny was able to come and handpick the toys. Joi's Angels serves all different ages and completely loaded up their truck. Second Chance Toys not only selected the organizations that were matched with our collection, but they scheduled the arrival times to make donation of the many toys turnkey.

This program is a great way to save toys from going into the oceans and landfills, and brings life back to toys so other children can use them... a real live Toy Story!!!  It gives our community great pleasure to know the toys go to good use.  Over the years, we have seen that giving up beloved toys is not as easy as we may think. They represent memories with our own children. Seeing our toys move on is like sending our children off to college for the first time.  At least with Second Chance Toys we know the toys will keep on providing others with the tools of play and help them socially, emotionally and developmentally.  It sure is better than cluttering up our landfills!!  Our residents feel great about our program and save up each year, knowing that they can count on our collection during Earth Month.

We plan on doing this collection as long as possible. If I see toys on the curb I pick them up for our collection the following year.  It has become a habit to me and it’s a good for us all to have. In fact, that's how Second Chance Toys got started!

River Edge Green Team averages about 1000+ toys at our 4 -hour collection! Look for our announcements on our Green Team's new Instagram and Facebook pages.

Till next year save your toys... we’ll be back again. -Bonnie Stewart is the River Edge Green Team Chairperson