SDV employees donate and deliver toys through the American Medical Response Toys for Children toy drive.

American Medical Response (AMR) sponsors a yearly “Toys for Children” drive, which distributes toys to hospitals, shelters, and low-income areas in New Haven and Fairfield Counties. SDV employees’ donations of games, toys and stuffed animals joined the hundreds of toys AMR collected through the generosity of the Southern Connecticut community.

Early in the morning on Friday December 22, a few SDV employees joined the AMR team at their Bridgeport station to fill the “Santa’s sleighs” of ambulances and handicap vans. This was the second of three distribution days the AMR organizes to hand out the floor-to-ceiling office-full of donated toys.

Shortly after arriving, the SDV elves and other local volunteers jumped into the AMR vans and merged into the police car and ambulance caravan en route to deliver the toys.

The first stop at the Yale Children’s Hospital brought a jolly Santa Claus to brighten the oncology children’s faces with his pre-Christmas presents. The caravan continued to Saint Vincent’s Hospital and Medical Center to deliver more toys to children and other patients who could bring the donations home to their loved ones. Toys also went to children at the Bridgeport Children’s Hospital.

At the end of the delivery, the SDV elves felt fortunate for the opportunity to have participated in the program, and brought home warm images of small smiles as special reminders of the holiday spirit they had shared.