Stoughton Police Hold 9th Annual SPD Fill-a-Cruiser Toy Drive

Deputy Chief Nathan Derby, who helps lead the Stoughton Police Department’s annual holiday toy drive, stands by a police cruiser during the 2018 SPD Fill-a-Cruiser event. A donation box is now stationed in the police station lobby, and the Fill-a-Cruiser event is being held this year on Saturday, Dec. 14, from 10 a.m. through 4 p.m., outside the department at 26 Rose St. (Photo courtesy Stoughton Police Department)

STOUGHTON — Chief Donna McNamara is pleased to share that the 9th Annual SPD Fill-a-Cruiser Toy Drive is underway. Stoughton Police, community groups, and individual donors team up to provide presents to local children who might otherwise miss out this holiday season.

Police officers will be standing by a cruiser parked outside of the Stoughton Police Station at 26 Rose St. from 10 a.m. through 4 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 14, with hopes of filling the vehicle with donated toys, gift cards, clothes, and other unwrapped presents for children of all different ages. The department’s Community Room is then used as a staging area before all the toys are distributed.

“It’s been a good event to help people in town and get people involved in a positive way,” said Stoughton Police Deputy Chief Nathan Derby, one of the officers who first established the initiative in 2016. “It started small, but since then, it’s become bigger and bigger.”

For those who can’t drop off their donations during the event, the toy drive collection will continue through Dec. 20. Donations can be placed in a donation box in the lobby of the Stoughton Police Station. In addition, organizers of the Stoughton Police Department toy drive are accepting cash donations, which can also be made electronically through the smartphone app Venmo, directing payments to the dedicated account established for this charitable cause, @stoughtonpolicerelief.

The annual toy drive has the assistance of Stoughton Public Schools, coordinated via school nurses, and several groups from the community, including Ahavath Torah Congregation, St. James and Immaculate Conception Parishes, Jubilee Christian Church, the Evelyn House and Father Bill’s & MainSpring. These community groups will assist police officers behind the scenes, helping to identify Stoughton families in need of gifts for their children this holiday season.

“We get to work with a diverse group in doing this,” Deputy Chief Derby said. “We’re hitting a lot of different facets of the community, which is nice to see.”

The Stoughton Police donation drive has helped provide gifts to around 100 children from Stoughton in each of the past few years, with each child receiving 5 to 10 presents.

Once all the requests from Stoughton are met, the Stoughton Police provides donated gifts to other organizations outside of Stoughton. In recent years, those extra gifts were donated to toy drives held by the Sharon Police, Randolph Police, Brockton Police, and the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services.

“Everything we receive goes to families in need from Stoughton and the surrounding communities,” Deputy Chief Derby said. “It sometimes ends up being more than what we need to fulfill the requests for the people from Stoughton. So a lot of the time, once we fulfill the requests for people from Stoughton, we’ll reach out to other organizations in neighboring communities.”

A small fund consisting of cash donations provided through the Fill-a-Cruiser campaign is also occasionally used throughout the year to help families in dire need. For example, the fund could help provide a child safety seat to a family in need.

“An officer may say, ‘I’ve dealt with this family before. They have nothing. Is there anything we can do?’” Deputy Chief Derby said. “And we may pull from those funds if available throughout the year.”

Chief McNamara offered thanks to all the Stoughton Police officers who work behind the scenes, going above the call of duty, to ensure local kids in need don’t go without gifts this holiday season. Chief McNamara also thanked the individual donors and community organizations who make this program possible.

“We are grateful to have police officers who recognize the challenges many families in our community are facing, and then take it upon themselves to brighten the holidays for local kids in need,” Chief McNamara said. “I would like to recognize Deputy Chief Nate Derby for the extra time and effort he puts into coordinating the toy drive and our annual Fill-a-Cruiser event. And I’d also like to give a special thanks to those individual donors who felt it in their hearts to offer a helping hand to their neighbors during this season of giving.”

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