The Highlands Emergency Council and the Mountaintop Rotary Club held their annual toy and coat drives to ensure that everyone in the Highlands community stays warm throughout the winter season.
The toy drive provided Christmas presents to 56 children in Highlands with the help from community members.
“The process for the toy drive begins when the HEC draws up a list of families and the children in those families, and they get the size of all their garments that they need, they get the gender and they make a list,” Mountaintop Rotary Club Vice Chair of Club Service Duncan Greenlee said.
The families who are included on the council’s list must meet specific requirements, which are set by the state, in order to be added onto the list. Additionally, the list is kept completely private and no identifying factors of the recipients are ever given out to any of the donors or anyone else outside of the HEC employees.
Christmas trees are set up in multiple locations across town, including First Citizens’ Bank and First Presbyterian Church of Highlands, with ornaments which include children’s sizes and genders. Each ornament is numbered which correlates with the families on HEC’s list. Individuals who wish to donate can pick up an ornament from any of the trees and then bring the unwrapped gifts and the ornament label to the HEC headquarters.
“Next year, we will expand that so that there’ll be more trees in more places,” Greenlee said. “So what those trees did is they made sure that those kids got more than one toy. It’s an inverted pyramid, so that the most needy children get the most toys, which is just the opposite of the big world, where the wealthiest children get the most toys. The toys come from the ornaments, and you buy a toy, do not wrap the toy, put the ornament on the toy and bring it upstairs and then the HEC takes those toys, sorts them out so that each child has a bag, then the recipients of the toys will come and get their bags, and the parents will wrap the toys themselves.”
The Mountaintop Rotary is also currently holding their annual coat drive and will continue to collect and distribute coats throughout the winter season. The drive officially began in November and has collected more than 700 coats and other winter clothing items.
“It’s wonderful because we’ve gotten much more, much bigger contributions, and we’re overwhelmed by the support of the Highlands community,” Greenlee said. “But on the other hand, supply is being overrun by demand. We’ve tapped into a geyser of supply, but an even deeper well of need. What we need from the Highlands community is we need donations of warm winter coats. We also need donations, and what we do with the donations is we go to various Goodwill and Salvation Army stores and we buy used coats [and we buy new coats].”
All donations of coats and money can be made at the Highlands Emergency Council which is open from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday.
Donations can also be made at the five churches during their operating hours, at the Highlands Recreation Center and at First Citizens’ Bank during their normal operating hours.
For more information on the coat drive and the Highlands Emergency Council, contact the council at 828-526-4357.