Calgary toy drive aims to collect 2,500 toys to honour fallen officer

Calgary police recently partnered with Toy Angels and the Salvation Army for the annual holiday Toy Angels campaign to collect toys for this holiday season.

Calgarians can still help honour a fallen Calgary police officer and give some Calgary kids something to play with this Christmas.

Last weekend saw the Fill the Sergeant Andrew Harnett Memorial Rink Toy Drive.

This event was part of the 27th annual toy angels campaign in which they were able to collect 900 toys over the course of the day. But the campaign doesn’t wrap up until Sunday, Dec. 18.

Sergeant Paban Dhaliwal with the Calgary Police Services is one of the organizers of the now annual event through the kids-play foundation.

“So we had a big goal so we had a goal of 2,500 and obviously we didn’t make that goal however we did collect again 900 that’s going to help kids in and around Calgary,” said Dhaliwal.

“Last year our goal was 1,225 and we were able to bring in 1,300 toys so we thought we’d give ourselves a challenge and put it out to almost double that number. We choose that number just because it’s Christmas Day, so twenty-five for the 25th and the twelfth month being December.”

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He says they are planning to hold the toy drive event every year.

“This is the second year we hosted it at the Sergeant Harnett Memorial Rink in his memories. As Kids Play Foundation it has hosted the toy drive three times, three different years now, the first being at the Dashmesh Cultural Centre.”

He adds that the Falconridge and Castleridge Community Centre renamed their rink in 2020 to honour Sgt. Harnett so it’s now called the Sergeant Harnett Memorial Rink.

As for how they were inspired to take action and bring this idea to life, Dhaliwal says it was a group effort.

“This came about in conversation with the volunteers at the Kids Play Foundation. They wanted to do something to honour Sargeant Harnett who spent most of his career in District 5 in northeast Calgary.”

“And when the rink was renamed kind of the idea was to one day fill that rink full of toys for kids. Harnett had a big heart, loved the community he served.”

He adds that one day in the future maybe a decade down the road or so they hope to reach their target goal of 4,601 toys which was Sergeant Harnett’s badge number.

As for distribution, the collected toys are donated to the Salvation Army where toy sorting takes place. Due to COVID-19 the last couple of years they were unable to do toy sorting.

Although the event itself is over you can still drop off an unwrapped toy at police stations and other locations for Toy Angels until Sunday, Dec. 18.

–With files from Lisa Grant