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Shoppers fill their carts with $28,000 worth of toys and clothing for needy families

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A group of volunteers spent about $28,000 at the Target store in the Empire Center on Monday in an effort to give back to needy families in the San Fernando Valley.

Numerous shopping carts were filled with toys and clothing and will be placed in packages and distributed to several local nonprofits — the Boys & Girls Club of Burbank and Greater East Valley, Family Promise of the Verdugos, Hope of the Valley Shelter, San Fernando Rescue Mission and Covenant House.

More than 25 volunteers were divided into groups and assigned a list of items they needed to buy and the price limit for each category.

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Laura and Adam Himelson and Sarah Watson were tasked with buying $2,500 worth of toys for young boys. Within minutes of being told what to buy, the trio already had two carts filled with Star Wars toys, which many of them said was their favorite movie series.

“I’m buying things that I would want to play with now,” Watson said with a laugh. “There were things that I used to get in my stockings as a kid, and I’m going to grab a few of them for myself on the way out.”

The event was organized by Lauren Hissrich and her friend Michelle Lankwarden, who started the event six years ago after Hissrich gave birth to her first son Harry, who was born at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank.

Harry was born five weeks early and was placed in the hospital’s neonatal intensive-care unit, where he recovered after a week. Grateful for what St. Joseph was able to do for her family, Hissrich decided to give back by hosting fundraisers and using the proceeds to buy toys and other goods to donate to the hospital, Hissrich said.

During their first year, Hissrich and Lankwarden raised about $1,000, but the amount of donations continued to grow each year. Because more people were donating, the two decided to start donating toys and clothes to other nonprofits in the San Fernando Valley.

“I think people want to have an opportunity to do good things, especially during the holidays,” Hissrich said. “We make that opportunity very easy for them.”

Lankwarden added: “People like to see where their money is going. We raise it, we come here, we take pictures of us shopping and we spend every penny right here.”

Volunteers Talia Green and Rae Dubow were assigned to buy clothes for young boys and stuffed their carts with numerous hoodies, T-shirts and underwear.

Dubow said that she understands how difficult it is for low-income families to provide some of the basic amenities for their children and does not take for granted how fortunate she is.

“Kids lose hope if they don’t see something nice and beautiful during the holidays,” she said. “This is a way for us to say that we appreciate them and [they] are welcome in the world and that there are people in the world that care about them.”

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Anthony Clark Carpio, anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpio

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