Toys Needed

by Nina Rizzo, Toms River Bureau

Toys.Calm wants to be sure young cancer patients have games and stuffed animals.

The host of Summerfest, the township's annual summer concert series, is urging concert-goers to bring new toys to the Thursday night shows at WIndward Beach in August. The toys are for children receiving cancer treatments at local hospitals.

Disc jockey Big Joe Henry of radio station 101.5 FM has teamed up with Erin Puck, a 14-year old cnacer survivor who founded Toys.Calm, a nonprofit organization that collects toys, games and stuffed animals for children ages six months to 12 years old, to ensure that pediatric wards don't run out of toys this summer.

"A lot of people don't think about toys in the summer," Henry said, noting that donations run short this time of year but pick up again around the holidays.

The toys help ease the lonliness children confined to hospital wards often feel when their families and friends cannot visit them and there are not enough toys to occupy their worried minds, Erin said.

The Fair Haven girl was diagnosed with brain cancer in October 1999. She endured six weeks of radiation and 36 weeks of chemotherapy after surgeons removed a tumor from the base of her cerebellum, the part of the brain that coordinates muscular movement.

"It's a very lonely, scary environment," Erin's mother, Laura Puck, said about the treatment centers. "The toys kept her feeling more positive and helped with the healing."

Henry met Erin in March at the annual FoodBank of Monmouth and Ocean Counties humanitarian awards dinner. He was the emcee; she was a junior recipient. Since then the unlikely duo has been working together to expand the scope of Toys.Calm to provide more than stuffed animals and video games to children receiving radiation and chemotherapy.

The pair wants to provide Internet access and video camersa in children's hospital rooms so youngsters can interact with their friend and family at home and at school.

Monmouth Medical Center, Long Branch, agreed to host a pilot program in the fall. Sue Godwin, director of child life services at the hospital, said the hospital administrationwas "thrilled" that Erin came to them with this idea.

"I thought it was an absolutely wonderful idea and very timely," Godwin said. "Many of our pediatric patients, especially adolescents and pre-adolescents, ask if there is a way they can access the Interent and e-mail their friends."

To date, Toys.Calm has collected nearly 7,000 toys and $17,000 in donations. It needs to raise $60,000 to "wire" several hospital rooms, schools and homes with computers and video cameras. Toys and monetary donations can be dropped off at the Coca Cola van at Windward Beach on Thursday evenings in August, or sent to Toys.Calm, P.O. Box 153, Little Silver, NJ 07739.

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