Raiders Participate In Band-Aid Collection

The Raiders Drum and Bugle Corps of Wayne, New Jersey participated in a Band-Aid drive started by a local girl. Gabriella Handal, age 12 of Totowa, New Jersey, started the Sunshine Collection last year to help pediatric Cancer patients in St. Joseph’s Hospital in Paterson. For her first collection, Gabriella collected toys, games, books and DVDs to bring cheer to the young cancer patients. This year, the donation item was “fun” Band-Aids. The hospital is only able to provide standard, undecorated Band-Aids for the patients, so Gabriella collected Band-Aids with cartoon characters for the youngest cancer patients and colorful Band-Aids for the older pediatric patients.

Although the Raiders only learned about the Sunshine Collects days before the deadline, they were able to collect 90 boxes of Band-Aids and cash donations. The final overall donation totals were 400 boxes of Band-Aids and $1000 in cash donations. Gabriella and her mother, Tina Handal, came to the Raiders practice site to pick up the donated items. The Handals are new to drum corps, but were very interested to learn more about the activity and plan to attend one of the upcoming shows so they can see the corps in action. The Raiders were very enthusiastic about being able to make a difference in the lives of the patients in the Pediatric Hematology and Oncology Department in St. Joseph’s Hospital and plan to participate in the Sunshine Collection on an annual basis.

The picture below shows Gabriella Handal (second from left) receiving the donation from Raiders’ drum majors Jarrett Porter and Kim Roman and corps executive director Tom Maiello.