EDITOR'S NOTE: The 2000 Toy Drive has been completed with a raft of toys collected for The Other Way's Christmas Store. Over $3,000 worth of toys and cash were collected in five days! Below is the original media advisory that gives more background on this project.

For the fourth straight year Calvin College students, faculty and staff will be making Christmas a little brighter for some area parents and their children. Calvin faculty and staff will have a toy drive from November 27 through December 1 to benefit a Christmas Store run by The Other Way, a ministry on the northwest side of Grand Rapids.

The toys will be collected each of those days in the front lobby of Calvin's Spoelhof Center (the main administration building on campus).

The Christmas Store run by The Other Way gives low-income parents a dignified and meaningful way to bring Christmas to their kids. Parents can earn credits at The Christmas Store by working in the neighborhood. They then use the credits at The Christmas Store to buy gifts for their children. The parents avoid incurring debt they can ill afford, children get a few nice gifts and The Other Way gets much-needed volunteer hours to do its work.

Says Deb Worst of The Other Way: "The Christmas Store is a very positive part of our neighborhood's Christmas celebration. Parents no longer have the uncertainty and fear that they won't be able to give their children a present on Christmas day. They can provide for their families in a dignified way. The store is an important concept in the work that we do with low-income people."

Many of Calvin's residence halls also are supporting Christmas Stores and had service auctions to raise money for the stores. A couple of dorms raised $2,300 each for the Christmas Stores at Sherman Street Christian Reformed Church and Roosevelt Park Ministries. All told over $10,000 was raised by Calvin's residence halls for local agencies.