Niamh Coomey Trending
The Stoltz Family McDonald's restaurants will be donating toys from their annual drive and sharing the gift of Christmas with kids at the St. John's Home for Children.
The franchise raised close to $1,000 that went toward the purchase of several dozen toys. They held a digital fundraising day where 20% of purchases from customers on the McDonald's app were allocated to the drive.
"It's kind of nice to be able to do this and have this tradition every single year," Stoltz Family McDonald's Creative Manager Anne Abele said.
St. John's is a residential treatment facility for children ages 6 through 12 who come from abusive or neglectful households. The facility has the capacity to house 10 kids at a time and there is consistently a wait list, said St. John's Director of Marketing and Development Amy Pramesa.
Staff typically try not to take in new kids in between Dec. 20 and the first of the year, but it is usually inevitable because of need, Pramesa said.
One year, a child who transferred from a different home on Dec. 26th had only received a pencil for Christmas. He was in awe of the presents he got from "Santa" at St. John's after he arrived.
Because of the drive, the children at St. John's get to open presents on Christmas morning when they otherwise might not have been able to.
"The impact is phenomenal. We would not have the line budget to do this for our boys if it wasn't for donors like McDonald's in the Ohio Valley," Pramesa said.
Abele pulls together a list of toy ideas that McDonald's staff help shop for with the fundraised money, which is typically around a grand each year.
"We have good employees that step up if we don't have enough, they'll supply and help and drop off items so we just have a support system of really good crew members," she said.
Abele is a mom of two, which she said helps her in crafting the shopping list for the children at St. Johns.
"It's kind of sad to see their list and they ask for character socks or things that your kids already have," she said. "So it's nice being able to be like a mom to boys that I haven't met."
April Young, an employee of the Elm Grove McDonalds, started the drive several years ago and Abele started getting involved. When Young stepped away from the project, Abele took over.
Abele said it can be sad to hear the stories of what kids at St. Johns have been through and she enjoys seeing the positive impact of the toy drive year after year.
"It's just nice being able to kind of help from afar so the kids see that just because they were in a bad situation the world's not all bad," she said.