Seaford High School students spread holiday joy

The Seaford High School Student Council got to play Santa Claus for the holiday season, hosting a toy drive and pulling in enough toys to fill up two rooms in the high school.

Working with Head Start of Hempstead, Head Start of Westbury, and Hope for Youth, the student council is made up of 14 dedicated students who are elected by the rest of the school. Of those 14, the officers, comprising co-presidents and representatives, are then elected to lead initiatives like the toy drive.

“They’re already elected to the council on a grade level,” Shari Raduazzo, English teacher and co-adviser of the council, said. “So to be an officer shows that their peers within the student council have the confidence in them to elect them as leaders.”

This year’s officers include Co-president Michael Lent, a senior; Co-president Ella Bloom, also a senior; Representative Megan Bloom, a sophomore; and Representative Olivia Anzelone, a freshman. All four have been involved in student councils for some time, with Anzelone being a member since she was in fourth grade.

“I joined the student council freshman year because I wanted to be more involved in the community,” Ella Bloom said. “Having done things like this toy drive for the past two years, it’s just very rewarding. I love seeing the look on the kids’ faces when they get the toys.”

Raduazzo and the officers speculated that the toy drive has been going on for as long as Seaford High School has been in existence, estimating that this toy drive may have occurred each year since 1957.

While the student council leads the effort, the drive is a school-wide campaign, with individual classes doing their part to spread holiday cheer.

“We ask head start to give us a ‘Dear Santa’ letter from a child,” Raduazzo said. “From there, every second period class — we don’t have homeroom, but our announcements are during second period so that serves as one — adopts that child. They contribute to whatever the child has asked for in their ‘Dear Santa’ letter.”

Seaford Middle School assists in this effort too, with a “Class Cup” competition for every grade, and whichever homeroom donates the most toys gets points towards that competition.

The parameters for the donations were new toys in perfect condition.

The student council led the advertising campaign for the drive, posting on social media sites such as Instagram and putting up flyers all around Seaford. But this effort was also aimed at Wantagh, given that the two communities are so tight-knit.

The Facebook group “Friends of Wantagh-Seaford NY” also requested donations.

Council members volunteered their houses as drop-off centers for these toys, and they would then bring them into school, where the council’s board members would gift-wrap them.

“We had about five student council members volunteer their houses, and the goal was to have each one be in a different area of Seaford,” Lent said. “But we all expanded our efforts beyond Seaford as well. I have family that lives out east, and I talked to them about this drive as well.”

The effort was a success, as the room in which the council board meets was filled with toys, and an additional closet had to be used in the school to house the toys before they are distributed.

“I think people are really participating this year and will want to come back next year,” Megan Bloom said. “I think we all like that. Instead of just giving toys to anyone, we get to adopt a child. We know what they want and are able to get specific toys for a certain person.”

For the head start programs in Hempstead and Westbury, council members dress up as Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus and elves and distribute the toys to the children adopted by Seaford High School.

“We’ve really put it more out there into the entire school and the surrounding communities in recent years,” Lent said. “And we’ve all noticed a big difference in the turnout since we started doing so.”