Lebanon
A volunteer firefighter for decades who serves as a Claremont city councilor, he fulfilled a longtime goal last week when he donated hundreds of toys to the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth in Lebanon.
“I’ve wanted to do this since I was a little kid,” said Koloski, who was a patient at what was then Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital when he was “Sesame Street-watching age.”
“I remember … what a scary experience that was,” he said. “The only relief I got was being able to go to their toy room and play.”
As an on-call firefighter in Claremont, Koloski receives a stipend of about $1,200 a year. He used that money to purchase the toys. In the past, he’s put the money toward the holiday dinner that he and his mother host at their restaurant, Time-Out Americana Grill in Claremont. Two other families also donated items, bringing the total to about 600. The toys were stored in the eatery’s storage space.
“I wanted to make a serious dent. I didn’t just want to bring up a few items,” Koloski said. “I’ve been doing a lot of stockpiling so we could do one mass delivery.”
When he brought the toys to the hospital on Tuesday, Amie Marsh, the hospital’s child life coordinator, said the supply would last 6-8 months.
“When I learned that, that just means the delivery (Tuesday) is not good enough as far as my standpoint,” Koloski said. Now, he is determined to collect even more toys for CHaD.
Marsh said there’s a shelf-life for certain toys, such as board games.
“It will probably only last a month or two because it’s played with more,” Marsh said.
The hospital receives hundreds of donations each year and Koloski’s “was one of our larger donations,” Marsh said.
A couple of days later, Koloski announced that the next phase of his fundraising efforts had just begun. “We’re going to start collecting stuffed animals at the restaurant in Claremont,” he said. “I’m going to be working to make a very large delivery in the near future.”
Editor’s note: New stuffed animals — with the tags still attached — can be dropped off at Time-Out Americana Grill at 101 Mulberry St., in Claremont. For more information on how to donate to CHaD, visit www.chadkids.org. Liz Sauchelli can be reached at 603-727-3221 or esauchelli@vnews.com.
