Annual toy drive has special meaning for Celina teen, high school teacher

CELINA - The school's annual toy drive for an area children's hospital was an emotional experience this year for volunteers who reflected on personal experiences and the thought of spending the holidays in a hospital.

Lucas Coldiron, a Celina High School freshman, said it brought back a lot of memories when he walked through the doors of the Dayton hospital.

"My brother had cerebral palsy and was in Dayton Children's Hospital through Christmas in 2009. I spent a lot of my days in there and I remember my brother getting toys from the Celina High School toy drive. That was such a great thing and I remember wanting to be a part of that as soon as I could," Coldiron said.

His brother, Derrick, passed away in 2011 and he has been giving back to the hospital ever since, Coldiron said. He jumped at the opportunity to be a part of the school's toy drive.

"It felt really good to bring those presents and to give back," Coldiron said.

He recalled the special moment when toys were brought to his brother in the hospital and it made him happy to be a part of the program that made it happen.

An eagerness to give back and brighten the day of children in the hospital is something Alicia Ball - the teacher in charge of the toy drive - hoped to inspire in her students.

Ball also has childhood memories of the Dayton hospital; she spent time there when she was 5 years old. A few weeks before her sixth birthday, a "football-sized" cancerous tumor was found in her body and surgically removed at the hospital. Despite the circumstances, she has fond memories of her stay, she said.

"When I was in the hospital, the Child Life department was incredible. Their job is to make sure kids can still be kids even when they are in the hospital. When I had my surgery, I remember getting a Cabbage Patch doll and playing air hockey with my friends. It really never felt like I was in the hospital, it was fun," Ball said.

Ever since her first hospital stay, she has been working to give back to the place that saved her life, she said.

"When I was a kid, my friend and I (who was a patient at Dayton Children's with diabetes) would put on little fund-raisers in the neighborhood and would donate the money we raised to the hospital," Ball said.

She started doing the toy drive in college when she saw it advertised on the hospital's website.

"I announced it online, not sure of the response I would get. By the end of the week, I had random strangers dropping off loads of toys at my house. I had to bungee cord my trunk shut to bring all the toys to the hospital," she said.

Ball said that kind of generosity inspired her to continue the toy drive when she was hired at Celina High School. She feels it's important to support the people who supported her, and making a hospital stay a positive experience is a really good cause.

The annual toy drive at the school has grown every year, Ball said. One bus and 20 students made the trip the first year. Now in its fifth year, more than 100 students applied to go, two busloads of students traveled to the hospital and 2,075 toys were collected.

"It was really exciting to see how many toys we collected," high school junior Aniston Moran said. "We had a goal of 2,000 toys and it was really cool to reach our goal."
Freshmen Grace McGohan and Hope Ebbing also were excited to reach the goal. They had doubts.
"Two days before the deadline, we were 1,000 toys short," McGohan said.
However, the community and students teamed up and donated the additional 1,000 toys, they said.

Ebbing and McGohan hope to be a part of the toy drive during the next three years of high school. They called the experience fun and rewarding.

Senior Elyssa Sheriff hopes to take the idea one step further. She plans on becoming a nurse and would love to get a similar program started at the hospital that employs her, she said.

Sheriff's favorite experience was seeing the children's faces light up when they saw the toys. She wants to keep the smiles coming, she added.

"I couldn't imagine being in a hospital as a kid without toys on Christmas. This is a really great idea; it was fun to be a part of it," she said.