The Hamilton Area YMCA Togetherhood service committee offered the community a solution to the perennial Halloween question: “what should I do with all this leftover candy?”
The YMCA held a candy drive with a goal of collecting excess or unwanted Halloween candy to be redistributed to military serving overseas. The YMCA planned to package the candy and ship it to Operation Gratitude, a California organization that creates care packages for American soldiers.
By the end of one week, the Hamilton Area YMCA collected 855 pounds of candy. The candy was then sorted and bagged by teens in the Y Connection program.
“The community’s response to our candy drive was unbelievable,” Hamilton Area YMCA CEO David Kisselback, said. “We were overwhelmed by the community support. We thought this was a great way to promote healthy living, especially among our youngest members, but it became so much more. We’re proud to support those serving our country with this initiative, it’s a small but sweet taste of home. ”
The cost to ship the candy was over $1,000. That’s when the Ys Community Partner, CareOne at Hamilton stepped in. They offered to pay the full cost of the shipping.
The candy was boxed and shipped on Friday, Nov. 11, which was also Veterans Day. Each box of candy weighs about 50 pounds, and each box included handwritten notes of thanks to our troops that were created by students in the Y’s BASE and Y’s Owls Programs.
The Hamilton Area YMCA marked Veteran’s Day with a small celebration at the JKR Branch after which the boxes of candy were loaded onto a truck and taken to FedEx for shipping.
“We were proud to support the Hamilton Area Y and pay to ship the candy to our troops,” Elizabeth Toplenszky, of CareOne at Hamilton, said. “It is a small cost to thank our servicemen and women for all that they do.”
