The Maryland State Police has just held its first ever Stuffed Animal Drive. It gathered lots of toys for first respondents to give to children in need.
The stuffed animal drive began last month. It was held in coordination with Hollywood Volunteer Rescue Squad, the Mechanicsville Volunteer Rescue Squad, the Leonardtown Volunteer Rescue Squad, and the Ridge Volunteer Rescue Squad, the Southern Maryland News Net reports.
The event was organized thanks to the lots of positive responses the police got when on the Maryland State Police- Leonardtown Barrack Facebook page on December 29, 2015 a picture was posted of a few officers holding stuffed animals. They were donated to them by an employee of Food Lion with the idea of being given to children in need when the officers come across them.
As a result, the Maryland State Police decided to host the First Annual Stuffed Animal Drive. The drive was a great success and the animals will be used by all the participants as comfort objects to children of traumatic situations, the report says. Lots of police departments, fire departments and hospitals already receive such donations.
Stuffed animals are known to help children cope with trauma. The huggable toys are also helpful to battling depression. So having more departments join and begin to collect and distribute stuffies is great.
On Saturday, March 12, 2016, the Maryland State Police Leonardtown Barrack distributed the thousands of stuffies gathered from the toy drive to the organizations that will participate in the giving out of the toys. This is just the first annual toy drive from the Maryland State Police. It is expected that this will become a tradition which will be great to see. Also, anyone can help by donating stuffed animals to their local first respondent teams and hospitals. It will do much good for a lot of children in need.
