Creating Resource to Empower Society Today (CREST), the youth wing of Centre for Integrated Learning (CIL), has launched ‘CREST Toy Bank’ project, an initiative to collect toys from school children, and give them to those in orphanages and anganwadis.
CREST members will keep boxes in different schools in the city on a select day and students can drop toys that are in working condition in these boxes.
“We will refurbish these toys, if needed, and hand over the same to orphanages and anganwadis,” said S. Nandagopal of CIL. The project by CREST is in continuation of the ‘joy of giving’ initiative done last year in which young members collected clothes and other materials for orphanages.
The Toy Bank project was unveiled at Canara Montessori and Canara Girls School on Tuesday. Mr. Nandagopal said students and parents from these two educational institutions have been impressed on the intent of the project. More boxes are being prepared for installation at other schools. These boxes would be placed at the schools through the week and on the weekend the collected toys would be delivered to children of institutions CREST has listed out, he added.
Database of kidsCREST would also keep a database of the children donating the toys. Toys in the form of guns, swords and other articles that depict violence would, however, not be accepted.