For many, the holiday season is a time of giving and generosity—a spirit that is alive and well in Morgan Hill as the community plans to step up to help their neighbors.
The Edward Boss Prado Foundation, which runs Cecelia’s Closet and Food Pantry, recently started their 12th annual Toys 4 Our Own holiday toy drive. Prado Foundation Executive Director Cecelia Ponzini said the program collects donated toys and other items from people and organizations throughout Morgan Hill, and in turn gives them to families in need in time for Christmas.
The foundation partners with Morgan Hill Unified School District, which identifies the recipient families for Toys 4 Our Own.
Ponzini and volunteers recently placed large bins at strategic locations throughout town, where donors can drop off new toys for the program. The foundation will collect those and other donations over the coming weeks, and in turn donate them on Dec. 19 to MHUSD and other organizations in South County.
The school district makes sure that kids in need in every MHUSD school receive some of the donated toys, Ponzini explained. The Prado Foundation also partners with an organization in Gilroy, and hopes to expand their charitable giving to Hollister this year.
“There is so much need in Morgan Hill and South County,” Ponzini said. “We want to make sure as many children as we can (reach) can get a couple of toys for Christmas.”
The foundation will also be donating live Christmas trees to families in need as part of its annual holiday charity efforts.
Numerous nonprofit organizations and businesses in Morgan Hill have contributed to the Prado Foundation’s Toys 4 Our Own efforts over the years, conducting their own donation drives or giving money to the program. One of those is the Kiwanis Club of Morgan Hill.
“The Morgan Hill Kiwanis and Cecelia’s Closet have a long history of working together for the kids in our community,” said Margaret Graham, past president of the Morgan Hill Kiwanis Club. “We are proud to support Cecelia as she gets toys to kids here in Morgan Hill. We’re also helping support her in the Christmas tree giveaway that she sponsors.”
Many other organizations, churches, groups and businesses conduct their own charitable giving efforts for the holidays in Morgan Hill every year.
For Thanksgiving, St. Catherine Church this week has been busy fulfilling its annual Giving Tree program, in which church members are asked to donate Thanksgiving meal food staples from which volunteers compile baskets to donate to families in need before the Nov. 28 holiday.
Last year, St. Catherine Church gave away more than 100 Thanksgiving meal baskets to local families through the Giving Tree program.
