Project Café students are currently hard at work collecting, cleaning and sorting donated toys for the organization’s eighth annual Gently Used Toy Shop. The event’s goal is to help families stretch their holiday dollars by collecting gently used toys and ensuring that they are Christmas-ready.

The Toy Shop’s mission to make sure the toys are clean, put together and ready to be gifted is taken to heart by Project CAFÉ. Project CAFÉ students log approximately 200 community service hours every year cleaning and prepping toys for resale. Project CAFÉ members and non-affiliated students alike come together after school and into the evenings almost every day to clean toys, make sure they are complete, functional and ready to be purchased.

“Unlike other years, where we have a base of toys to get us started, we’ve got nothing this year, which makes it little bit more challenging,” said event co-chair Mimi Gabor. “We’re hoping for a huge wave of donations next week — it would be really, really helpful.”

Toy Shop volunteers have been working for weeks to collect, clean and separate donations. They ask that all donated toys are gently used, in good condition, functional and that all pieces are present. Stuffed animals should be good condition, as well.

Every year, Harris Cleaners in Cazenovia cleans all donated stuffed animals for the toy shop free of charge, Gabor said.

This year, donation collection sites opened in mid-November, and will continue until Friday, Dec. 5, at all Cazenovia area schools, and until Sunday, Dec. 7, at Cazenovia area churches and at Common Grounds coffee house.

The toy shop event is scheduled to occur from 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 12, and from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 13, at Burton Street Elementary School.

All toy shop items are reasonably priced, most at $5 or less.

For more information, or if anyone would like to help with the toy shop, contact [email protected].

Jason Emerson is editor of the Cazenovia Republican. He can be reached at [email protected].