On Saturday, December 7, members of EAA Chapter 414 in Waukegan, Illinois, decided to forego the typical white elephant office Christmas party and instead give back.
Chapter vice president Jeff Schreiber, EAA 1122474, said the tradition started three years ago when he noticed there was a lot of waste from leftover food and unwanted gifts.
“We use to have a holiday party every year, and a separate event for the Toys for Tots,” Jeff said. “Well, the Toys for Tots drive never ended up being very successful because we didn’t have a lot of people showing up, and we would have all of this leftover food from the holiday party and nobody ever really liked the white elephant gifts anyhow. So I said, ‘Let’s combine the Toys for Tots drive with the holiday party, order in food rather than making a bunch of food dishes, and put our money to good use.’”
Jeff said there’s a lot of underprivileged kids in the Waukegan area and the chapter does its best to give back, give Young Eagles flights when possible, and volunteer at the local schools.
“It’s important for us to give back to the kids in the community and to try to get them involved in aviation as much as possible,” Jeff said.
The chapter held its event at the Paul Woods Warbird Heritage Foundation hangar and successfully collected more than 50 donations for the toy drive.