A mountain of toy drive donations forms inside the fire station for distribution to more than 40 charitable organizations for the holidays.
Congressman Josh Gottheimer and his daughter Ellie stop by the Bergen County Toy Drive to make a gift donation and thank PBA members for their holiday impact.
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that use the Bergen County Toy Drive to supply children who live in foster homes or homeless shelters with gifts for the holidays.
Nicoletti has dedicated 29 years to making sure the magic of Christmas reaches every family in need during the holiday season. After all this time, the Bergen County Toy Drive has become a part of him. It began as a giving effort that consisted of no more than eight officers, a bag of bagels and one red truck full of donations. Over the years, as more and more PBA Locals pitched in, Nicoletti became Old Saint Nic-oletti, and his notorious wish list of gifts to bring smiles to sick children and families in need multiplied. Now, the toy drive attracts the efforts of NJ State PBA President Pat Colligan, Executive Vice President Marc Kovar and even Congressman Josh Gottheimer and his daughter Ellie, who all willingly joined the SRT this year.
“ I’ ve got a lot of great men and women in blue that have picked up and helped make this grow into what it has become,” Nicoletti stresses.
Like the rest of the SRT, Nicoletti can hardly stand still. In addition to local families that officers identify throughout the year who are faced with troubled times, the Bergen County Toy Drive supplies 300 military families, 40 charitable organizations and nearly every hospital in Bergen County with gifts and special holiday requests.
This year, Eastern Bergen County Local 45’ s SRT members from Fairview became Nicoletti’ s first-in-command for higher-end tech gifts, gift cards and other gadgets. When Nicoletti thought of the teenagers stuck in Hackensack Hospital’ s Tomorrows Children’ s Fund unit fighting cancer during
NJ State PBA President Pat Colligan and Vice President Marc Kovar help load the trunks of charity organizations with toys to give back to the less fortunate.
the holidays, he reached out to Fairview PD Lieutenant John Pierotti with a special request for a bushel of Apple products.
“ Don will call me all hours of the day and night and tell me what somebody is asking for,” states Pierotti.“ Fortunately, with local businesses and fundraisers, we were able to raise a lot of money and we can take care of that.”
With the help of a generous community and a group of SRT members working year-round to raise money and awareness for the toy drive, Fairview PD came equipped with 40 iPads, 10 Apple Watches and even a few Nintendo DS devices. These
54 NEW JERSEY COPS ■ JANUARY 2018