{"id":2633,"date":"2014-12-20T14:53:16","date_gmt":"2014-12-20T19:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=2633"},"modified":"2014-12-20T14:53:16","modified_gmt":"2014-12-20T19:53:16","slug":"brick-pba-members-volunteers-deliver-a-merry-christmas-to-hundreds-of-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2014\/12\/brick-pba-members-volunteers-deliver-a-merry-christmas-to-hundreds-of-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick PBA Members, Volunteers Deliver A Merry Christmas to Hundreds of Children"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Volunteers<\/a>

Volunteers with Brick PBA Local 230\u2019s Christmas toy drive.<\/p><\/div>\n

What began Saturday morning in a room packed with toys at Brick Police headquarters will become a very merry Christmas to hundreds of the township\u2019s children whose holiday may not have been as bright without a little help.<\/p>\n

The massive volunteer effort by over 100 people, including many township police officers, takes time. But this year, as they have for more than two decades, the Brick Policemen\u2019s Benevolent Association Local 230 led one of the area\u2019s largest toy drives as the need in the community grows.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery year we see an increase in families,\u201d said Patrolman Ryan Talty, a four-year veteran of the department who chaired the toy drive for second year.<\/p>\n

This year, PBA members and volunteers collected, wrapped and distributed toys to 257 local children in need.<\/p>\n

\"Donated<\/a>

Donated toys.<\/p><\/div>\n

The PBA spends each holiday season collecting toys from bins placed in the township\u2019s Walmart and K-Mart stores, with extra donations coming from the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys For Tots program, locally based in Red Bank, Talty said. From there, PBA volunteers partner with several community groups, including the Police Explorers, Boy Scout Troop 20, Dragon cheerleaders, and the honor societies and Key Club chapters of Brick\u2019s two high schools. Participants in the New Jersey Junior High, High School and Collegiate American Pageants also volunteered. The group of between 100 and 120 volunteers gets to work early, separating, wrapping and tagging gifts with their recipients\u2019 names, readying them for a trip on Santa\u2019s sleigh to children in need.<\/p>\n

\"Brick<\/a>

Brick Police Explorers volunteering.<\/p><\/div>\n

The \u201csleigh\u201d of course, is driven by Brick police officers, who donate their time to deliver the gifts to families in need throughout the town, a journey that was undertaken Saturday morning, starting from that toy-filled room at town hall. The gifts are much appreciated, especially by parents who are able to give their children a special Christmas that may otherwise not have happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI delivered to a lady today, and she just broke down in tears,\u201d Talty said. \u201cWe had a few other guys who said the same thing. They were overwhelmed and so thankful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police officers received plenty of hugs along with the tears as a Brick tradition more than 20 years in the making played out again.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gets very emotional,\u201d Talty said.<\/p>\n

\"Boy<\/a>

Boy Scout Troop 20 volunteering in the Brick PBA annual toy drive.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What began Saturday morning in a room packed with toys at Brick Police headquarters will become a very merry Christmas to hundreds of the township\u2019s children whose holiday may not have been as bright without a little help. The massive volunteer effort by over 100 people, including many township police officers, takes time. But this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[24,101,531,659],"class_list":["post-2633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-in-brick","category-police-fire-courts","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-brick-township-police","tag-pba-local-230","tag-toys-for-tots"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/IMG_3312-e1419104944542.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-Gt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}