Pinecrest Police Department’s third annual Toy Chest is under way, and needs your help. The police department will be collecting new toys and gifts for children and the elderly through December 11 of this year. The toys should be for children, infant through 16 years old, and items of general interest for the elderly.

They also will be accepting checks made out to the Village of Pinecrest Toy Chest, which will be applied towards gifts and gift wrapping.

The project, started by Joyce Davis, the wife of outgoing Police Chief Davis, will be run this year by Officer Eric Schultz and Merlin Baglin.

Baglin explained, “Because of the amount of packing that Mrs. Davis was doing and all the preparations she had to make because of their departure from the department, she wasn’t going to be able to organize the project this year. Eric, when he heard, he came up to me and said, we should do this, this is a really great thing, and asked me if I would help. Of course, I was more than happy too.”

In addition to dropping off gifts at the police department, Palmetto Senior High’s Key Club, which was instrumental last year, is expected to help again this year. The local Girl Scout and Brownie Troops, who also were helpful last year, are expected to help collect gifts this year as well.

If you don’t have any links to the high school or local troops, the easiest way to drop off a gift is at the Village Police Department. It is located on the second floor of the Suniland Shopping Center, 11555 S. Dixie Hwy. The phone number is 305-234-2100.

Local businesses can also arrange to have their own drop boxes on site. They can call up and arrange with Schultz or Baglin to do so.

Last year, the Toy Chest gave gifts to several organizations, including the Association of Retarded Citizens, and South Florida children from Perrine, Cutler Ridge, South Miami Heights and Goulds. They also gave to the Children’s Cancer Friend “Ouch” Box, the Pediatric Cancer Center at Miami Jackson Memorial Children’s Hospital, and to Gift Bags for the Elderly at South Miami Hospital.

Baglin estimated that the department was able to distribute somewhere in the vicinity of a thousand gifts last year, and they’d like to beat that number this year.

“If we’re able to collect more than that number this year, we can start distributing to even more groups. It all depends on continuing to get the outstanding support that we have in the past from the community. In the past, the community has been very enthusiastic about the project,” Schultz said.  

Other officers that have been instrumental in the project include Det. Carlos Villanueva, who designed the flyer for the project, and D.A.R.E. Officers Pablo Rodriguez, Jose Rodriguez, and Robert Laricci, who helped distribute them at local schools.