Orange Girl Helps Brighten Holiday Season for Children at St. Jude Hospital

A local girl made this past holiday season a little brighter for kids suffering from cancer and other diseases by organizing a toy drive to benefit the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Lauren Richetelli, 13, of Orange, an Amity Middle School eighth grader saw a commercial asking for donations for St. Jude’s in November.

She went to work immediately, enlisted the help of a couple friends and created a flyer requesting toys or monetary donations and received permission from the school to distribute the flyer to all 600 middle school students and also placed a box for toy donations in the school’s office.

Lauren then appealed to family and friends by mailing the flyer to over 50 families.

The response from the community was incredible. She received donations totaling $685, which she used to buy toys, books and gift cards for kids of all ages. She also collected a large amount of donations in toys from the collection box at Amity.

Lauren was able to send 5 large boxes to St. Jude in December, making for a tremendously successful project and hopes to grow the toy drive for next holiday season.

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