Courtesy of Ella Duke
Key Points
- The Apopka Serves Foundation delivered gifts to 150 homeless or unaccompanied youth from three local schools during their annual toy drive.
- Mayor Bryan Nelson, acting as Santa Claus, handed out gifts at the breakfast event held at Propagate Social House.
- Ella Duke started the toy drive four years ago after realizing some kids were left out of holiday programs, and community support has grown since then.
The Apopka Serves Foundation recently delivered gifts from its annual toy drive at a breakfast with Santa on Saturday at Propagate Social House.
“These kids are almost all high school-age kids, but the way that you see their eyes light up when Santa comes onto the deck, you would think that they were still little kids,” said Ella Duke, Propagate Social House and Hall’s on 5th co-owner.
Apopka Serves was able to deliver gifts for 150 children from residents across the Apopka community. The foundation partnered with three area schools — Apopka High School, Wekiva High School, and Apopka Middle School — to determine which kids were experiencing homelessness or who qualified as unaccompanied youths.
“Sometimes it just means that their parents don’t have an address,” Duke said. “They might be living with a family member, or they might be couch surfing at a friend’s house.”
Apopka Serves delivered enough gifts for each student and their siblings to receive two or three presents. Santa Claus — also known as Mayor Bryan Nelson — called the children up to receive their gifts. Freemason volunteers from Orange Lodge No. 36 flipped pancakes on Santa’s grill for the morning’s breakfast.
Duke, who also serves as a board member for the Apopka Serves Foundation, initiated the drive four years ago. She had seen a social media post from an Apopka High School teacher requesting Thanksgiving meal donations.
“When I was packing her car up with the food, I said, ‘So what about Christmas?’” Duke said. “And she’s like, ‘Well, that kind of gets complicated.’”
The teacher told Duke that some children get left out of programs like Shop With a Cop or Angel Tree for various reasons. After Duke heard that, she reached out to Birchwood Coffee, who agreed to partner with her. They then posted calls for gifts on social media.
“The response was nothing short of a miracle,” Duke said. “That year, it was just one school, and I think we did about 50 kids that we were able to match with a present for Christmas.”
Toward the end of the first drive, Wekiva High School reached out to Duke, who said it was then she learned about the homeless students and unaccompanied youths.
“I was like, ‘Okay, I have some presents left over, and I can cover the rest of them,’” Duke said. “So we took care of those kids.”
The next year, Duke reached out to Apopka Serves for help, caring for 100 children. Last year, Apopka Serves had enough presents for 200 children. Presents often include items like guitars, iPads, makeup and dolls.
“We always try to have gifts for little ones, because luckily, the teachers will say, ‘So-and-so has a brother that’s 6 years old at home,’” Duke said.
Students put in requests for regular gifts and wish list items. Duke said she loves giving jobs as wish list items.
“We found out about this little boy — he was an unaccompanied youth, and that’s what he put on the list,” Duke said. “Being able to not just give a gift, but give the gift of capacity so that they can start taking care of themselves is probably the greatest joy that I get out of it.”
Duke gives the credit to the Apopka community for supporting the children in need.
“The real stars are the community members that show up with the gifts and our volunteers that we don’t even have to ask anymore — they actually contact us in November,” Duke said. “We could not do it without them. We would not be able to provide gifts for all those children.”