MONROE, Conn. — Baileigh Kearney, 14, a Jockey Hollow Middle School eighth grader, had suffered from an infected lymph node in her neck and the symptoms came to a head between Thanksgiving and the month of February when her temperature often spiked, sometimes to fevers as high as 104.9, and the severe pain brought her to tears, according to her grandmother, Barbara Agachinski.
“I needed surgery on my neck,” Kearney recalled. “I was kind of nervous.”
On March 4, the lump on the girl’s neck was drained during a medical procedure at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital. Just before she went home after the surgery, hospital staff brought Kearney to a closet full of donated toys from its Fill the Toy Closet Program.
“They let me pick out anything I wanted,” she recalled. “It made me feel happy.”
Though it was a difficult choice, Kearney decided to take home a smiling Care Bear with cheery pastel colors. During her week of recovery at home, she spent a lot of time resting in bed with her toy at her side.
Now that she is fully recovered and her bear is prominently displayed on her bed, Kearney, whose mother, Samantha, is a lieutenant at the Stepney Volunteer Fire Department in town, has organized a toy drive.
“I wanted to give back to the Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital,” Kearney said during an interview at Stepney’s Firehouse No. 2 Thursday afternoon.
Kearney is a junior member of the Stepney Fire Auxiliary and she presented her idea for the toy drive at a recent meeting. Kari Dyson, president of the auxiliary, said the entire membership enthusiastically agreed to back the project.
Dyson said Kearney worked closely with fellow auxiliary member, Jenn Dunn, and Kathy Doyle, vice president of the auxiliary, credited Kearney with doing most of the work in creating the flyer for the event.
The Fill the Toy Closet at Yale’s Children’s Hospital collection drive will run from May 1 to May 15. Donations of new and unused toys for infants to young teens may be left in collection boxes at Edith Wheeler Memorial Library, 733 Monroe Turnpike, and Awesome Toys & Gifts, 464 Main St.
To get the word out, a flyer has been distributed to all of Monroe’s public schools, according to Dyson.
Those wishing to make a donation can visit the hospital’s website to learn what is needed most and what kinds of toys the program already has enough of. For information, click here.
Kearney said her goal is to collect 15 toy donations by the end of the first week and 30 toys in all.
Dyson said her husband, Stepney Fire Chief Darren Dyson, has already committed to loading the donations onto a fire truck on the day the haul is delivered to Yale New Haven Hospital. Kearney and other auxiliary members will also make the trip.
Paying it forward
Joe Agachinski, Baileigh Kearney’s grandfather, who works in the town highway department, remembers when she shared her idea for the toy drive.
“She said they took really good care of her and she wanted to give back to the other children,” Agachinski said. “I was talking to my buddies in town and told them I’m proud of her. It makes me think she was raised right. Most kids wouldn’t do it or would expect something.”
“Baileigh told me she appreciated getting a toy and she wanted other kids to have a toy as well,” Doyle recalled.
Dyson said the toy collection drive is in keeping with the Stepney Fire Auxiliary’s mission of helping others in the community.
“She’s aware of what she was given,” Dyson said of Kearney. “Her kindness really shines through with this project.”
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