Community Spotlight: Helping to Send a Smile to Children Fighting Cancer

Our staff and families had the humbling opportunity to volunteer our time and talents to help sticker 1,000’s of toys, count inventory and create about a dozen “special request” packages that will be shipped across the nation to children fighting cancer.

On Sunday afternoon, we gathered in a big warehouse that could easily be confused for the North Pole. Why? It is lined with rows and rows of carefully organized shelves of brand new toys for boys and girls of all ages! Just the site of so many bright and cheery packages made the little kid in each of us smile wide.

It’s no wonder that the Bear-Able Gift Program, run by the Harrisburg-based nonprofit, Children’s Cancer Recovery Foundation (CCRF), is so special to the many children it serves!

The diagnosis of cancer is a devastating and life-changing one, especially when it is told to a young child and their family. CCRF aims to lessen this burden by sending small care packages to sick children across the nation. Each quarter, social workers and child life specialists may request toys and gifts based on the number of children they are treating.

CCRF relies upon the help of volunteers to pull age and gender-appropriate toys from their warehouse of donations and prepare boxes for shipment. These items are then shipped to hospitals and/or oncology centers across the country. Some hospitals choose to give each child something when they come in for treatment. Some children receive a special gift on their birthday. Others will place toys in their play centers for all the children to enjoy.

This quarter, we were able to help fulfill CCRF’s shipment by carefully pulling the appropriate toys from the shelves, wrapping them in CCRF’s signature bags and packaging them in boxes so they could be mailed out on-time. Everyone was able to share their strengths throughout a different part of the process while also getting to spend some time together outside the office.

Overall, this volunteer opportunity was a great experience for our staff and a meaningful way for Renewal by Andersen of Central PA to give back to the local community. We had a fun time working together, but also realized these toys were going to brighten someone’s day who is not as fortunate as we are. It was a humbling reminder to never take health or family for granted.

We look forward to working with CCRF again next month and will keep you updated on our yearlong charitable partnership with this fantastic organization!