Toy Tea Success

Twenty-three participating schools managed to collect over 2,000 new toys for the 26th annual Christmas and Chanukah Toy Tea, which was held on December 6 in the Oval Room of the historic Ritz Carlton Hotel in downtown Montreal.

These non-violent toys will benefit more than 5,000 children who are living in 31 shelters for domestic abuse and violence, and those who benefit from other charities such as the Welcome Hall Mission, the Montreal Diet Dispensary, Tyndale St. Georges Parish, St. Willebrord’s Parish and La Rue des Femmes. This is the fifteenth year of the English Montreal School Board’s (EMSB) involvement in the Toy Tea Campaign, which is organized under the direction of   Guidance and Spiritual Community Animation Education Consultant Frank Lofeodo. The participating EMSB schools were: Willingdon, Mackay Centre School/Philip E. Layton, FOCUS  Alternative High School and Royal Vale School in N.D.G.; LaurenHill Academy Junior Campus, Gardenview School and Parkdale School in St. Laurent; Vincent Massey Collegiate in Rosemount; Dunrae Gardens School and Carlyle School in T.M.R.; John F. Kennedy High School in St. Michel; St. Dorothy School in St. Michel; St. Gabriel School in Pointe St. Charles; Edinburgh School in Montreal West; Sinclair Laird School in Park Extension; Honoré Mercier School and John Paul I Junior High School in St. Leonard; Rosemount Technology Centre; Bancroft School in Plateau Mont-Royal; and Westmount Park School.

Student representatives from each school, along with their respective spiritual community animators, teachers, administrators and parent volunteers, attended the event to drop off their unwrapped donated toys and receive special certificates of participation from Erika Ludwick, the Toy Tea’s chairperson.

The event also featured the singing of Christmas carols by several private school choirs. Attendees were also treated to performances by the Willingdon, St. Dorothy and Westmount Park school choirs under the direction of, respectively, Nick Batzios, Caroline Derome and Giovanni Ruccolo.