Student initiates toy drive for fellow patients

Service projects are commonplace in Catholic schools, including this unique toy drive at Carroll Kuemper Catholic School this year. Austin Mollhoff, a second grade student, receives treatments at the University of Iowa Hospitals in Iowa City and he wanted to start a toy drive for children at the hospital.

The Kuemper students, staff, and families helped him conduct a toy drive for the children and families that are sick and receiving treatments at the University of Iowa Hospital.

Trish Tigges, a teacher at Kuemper, helped Mollhoff create a wish list and put out information about the items the hospital needed, and the response was overwhelming. Every day, more and more toys and items arrived in the mail or were dropped off at the school collection sites. Over 1,200 toys and $1,800 in gift cards were collected to deliver to Iowa City to coincide with one of Mollhoff’s treatments last fall.  

Staff packed the family vehicle and the large school van to bring the gifts to the children’s hospital. Hospital staff were “in awe” of the gifts and wanted the kids to know that they impacted the children at the hospital as so many could not go home for Thanksgiving or Christmas, and these toys brought a smile to their faces. Mollhoff was excited that the toy drive started small and quickly boomed into a massive toy drive.