{"id":82654,"date":"2016-12-15T07:50:11","date_gmt":"2016-12-15T12:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=82654"},"modified":"2016-12-15T07:51:01","modified_gmt":"2016-12-15T12:51:01","slug":"vantage-students-staff-support-toss-a-toy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2016\/12\/15\/vantage-students-staff-support-toss-a-toy\/","title":{"rendered":"Vantage donations support Toss-A-Toy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Submitted information<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When it comes to collecting money and toys for the local Toss-A-Toy campaign, Vantage Career Center has again broken its own record.<\/p>\n<p>Fundraising events over the past two weeks, sponsored by several school departments, included Jeans Days, an Ugly Sweater contest, an opportunity to have hair extensions installed for just $2 during lunch period and a \u201cchange stall\u201d, where students brought in loose change that teachers had to count by hand before they were allowed to begin teaching their class that day.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_82655\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-82655\" style=\"width: 350px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82655\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Vantage-Christmas-donations-photo1-12-2016.jpg\" alt=\"Vantage students load toys into a pickup truck. (Vantage photos)\" width=\"350\" height=\"259\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-82655\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Vantage students load toys into a pickup truck<\/strong>. <em>(Vantage photos)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Other Vantage programs donated to the cause, as did a former Vantage student who contributed funds from the sale of scrap metal. In all, more than $3,500 was raised.<\/p>\n<p>Students in the Vantage VCC (Visions, Choices, &amp; Connections) Class, known as \u201cthe elves\u201d and headed up by \u201chead elf\u201d, teacher Amy Grothouse, then went on a major toy shopping trip, converting the donated money into toys for all ages of girls and boys.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe kids do a wonderful job and we\u2019re all very proud of them,\u201d said MaryJo Wilhelm, Vantage Career Center community relations coordinator.<\/p>\n<p>Toss-A-Toy, working with the Salvation Army, was started by several Van Wert business people to replace the efforts of the local Toys for Tots campaign when its administrator was unable to continue in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>The campaign has grown to be quite successful, thanks to area participation by schools, individuals, and local businesses, Walmart among them, which offered a discount on toys that were immediately donated.<\/p>\n<p>In all, some 530 needy area families will have a toy to place under the tree this year.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_82656\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-82656\" style=\"width: 545px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82656\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Vantage-Christmas-donations-photo2-12-2016.jpg\" alt=\"Vantage VCC Class students with the Christmas gifts purchased with school donations.\" width=\"545\" height=\"268\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-82656\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Vantage VCC Class students with the Christmas gifts purchased with school donations.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Submitted information When it comes to collecting money and toys for the local Toss-A-Toy campaign, Vantage Career Center has again broken its own record. Fundraising events over the past two weeks, sponsored by several school departments, included Jeans Days, an Ugly Sweater contest, an opportunity to have hair extensions installed for just $2 during lunch [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 10:32:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82654\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}