Brighton, N.Y. – A local effort to collect stuffed animals for Sandy Hook students in Newtown has drawn donations from across the country.
Amy Dickason, of Brighton, started the project shortly after the shooting.
She called it “Stuffed Hugs for Sandy Hook.”
Stuffed animals started arriving from community groups and agencies: the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, the Rochester Fire Department, Gates Ambulance, to name a few.
Around the same time, the Facebook page promoting the collection went national.
Celestial Seasonings, a tea company out of Boulder, Colorado, sent 780 new stuffed animals.
All of the stuffed animals, the new and the used, are being sorted and stored at First Baptist Church of Rochester in Brighton.
Dickason says she and friends will delivery the gifts, which now total more than 1,500, on Thursday.
“We hope that we reach out to the community and maybe we can create a relationship with them … let them know we’ll care about them afterwards,” Dickason said.
If you have a stuffed animal you want to donate, you can hand deliver it to the Brighton Fire Department.
