The Eagles kicks off Community Toy Drive

Havre Eagles Club will begin its Community Toy Drive today, helping helps families in need in the area.

Candace Dess, manager of the Eagles Club, said the group wants to ensure that any family in need utilizes the options provided to the community.

“The Toy Drive we set up in the back room, and all the toys will be put out,” she said. “Then we have appointments for a few days, about every 15 minutes. The parents come, and they are allowed so many gifts per kid. We give them some wrapping paper and they go home and wrap the gifts for the kids.”

Dess said this is her favorite project of the year.

“It is definitely a need in the community. We get a lot of people looking for help this season,” she said. “… We will be setting up appointments the first week of December for parents that need help for their children.”

The locations for donation boxes will be Walmart, North 40, Ben Franklin, Gary & Leo’s Fresh Foods, Triple Dog Brewing, Havre Hi-Line Realty, 40 Below, Crawford Distillery, Creative Yogurt, Eagles Club, Henny Penny, Angel Care, and Holiday Village Mall. The boxes will remain at these locations until Dec. 21.

“We are also accepting donations,” Dess added. “We have people who want to adopt a family or help with the Toy Drive, but they don’t want to go shopping, so they will send me a check, and our group of volunteers will go shop for their families.”

The checks can be written out to the Havre Eagles Club.

“Every year, we also do a donation drive. We go around and visit businesses, and that donation drive is on Dec. 12,” she said. “We collect donations. A lot of them will have gathered toys ready for us or will have cash donations.”

In addition to the Toy Drive and the donation drive, the Eagles will also be organizing the Adopt-A-Family program.

“We are still looking for people to adopt families — people, groups or businesses that would be interested in adopting a whole family for Christmas,” Dess said, “To adopt a family means you would get a whole family … and you would supply the whole family with their gifts and their Christmas dinner.”

“It’s a great thing for church groups, other non-profit groups, or businesses. A business can come together and all their employees get together, that’s a great option if a business can adopt a family. We are always short on this program, so we are really encouraging if people are able to do that,” Dess said. “If not, the Toy Drive boxes will be around town. We are looking for new toy items, ages 0 to 18, and we empty the boxes every week.

“When you adopt a family, you also get their clothing size, so there is also an option to get them clothes also,” Dess added.

Dess said they will be working with the Salvation Army to support families in need.

“In order to help as many families as possible, we ask that you choose one program,” she said. “We do some cross referencing, so we can help as many families as possible.”

If any member of the community wishes to donate or participate in these programs, they can contact Dess at 406-262-0498 or 406-265-9551.