­­­HOLYOKE –  The Holyoke Police Department is continuing their decades-old tradition of collecting holiday donations for those in need.

Detective Tony Brach, who spearheads the annual toy drive, told Reminder Publishing that the drive began more than 30 years ago to build relationships in the community. “It originally developed to go into the neighborhoods the narcotics unit were mostly in during the year. The narcotics were always going into poor neighborhoods, arresting mom, dad, uncles, aunts, [so they] started it to show the kids the police aren’t all bad, and there to arrest their parents,” he said.

However, over the years, it developed from just helping the underserved neighborhoods, but also to shelters and others in need in Holyoke. “Over the years it developed, not just into those communities, but also helping the poor people, the shelters. We have a lot of shelters in Holyoke, the majority of our donations go to the homeless shelters in the city,” he explained.

During non-COVID-19 years, Brach said once donations were collected detectives would load up a truck full of presents with someone dressed like Santa to distribute the gifts in the communities. He called the drive a “team effort throughout the office.”

“Kids will line up in the street and line up at the back of the truck. Santa will give each kid a couple of toys,” he said.

However, this year due to the ongoing pandemic, distribution will look slightly different. “This year because of COVID we obviously can’t do that, so the week leading up to Christmas, we’ll be delivering the toys to the shelter, and shelter workers will distribute toys to families in their care,” he said. If needed, Brach said they are available to deliver the toys should someone not be able to pick them up themselves.

Brach said over the years the community and area businesses have been very generous with donations. “Over the years we have a lot of public support, business support,” he said. However, for some reason he said this year donations were slow to come in.

“As of right now it’s very slow. Normally we would have a lot of donations right now. We have very little,” he said. Popular donations include everything from footballs to arts and crafts. Brach said they “take everything” and ask for donations from newborn and infants “all the way up to 17, 18.”

The majority of donations, he explained, are dropped off at the Police Department on 138 Appleton St. He added that should people need donations picked up, though, police were able to do that. “We also go out and if there’s a larger donation or you can’t get to the Police Department, we go out and pick those up,” he said.

Brach said there was no deadline on when donations would stop being collected, but people could also donate monetarily or with gift cards if they chose. Should someone choose to donate monetarily, he said the easiest way was to use cash or a check. However, if those writing checks should make it out to Brach as he said, “if they make it out to the Police Department or the city it goes into the general fund.”

Those with questions or requesting the pickup of a donation can reach Brach at 536-3423 or call the Police Department directly at 322-6900 and ask for narcotics. Brach said if no one answers people should leave a message and he will get back to them as soon as he can.