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Toy joy marked the holidays for many area children.

It was a U-Haul truck-not a reindeer-drawn sleigh-that brought happiness to many local children over the recent holidays. Students in the College gathered toys, including a number of teddy bears and Barbie dolls, for the Community Partnership for the Homeless, Inc. (CPHI) in Miami, one of the principal recipients of community service efforts from the Miami Benefits Club at FIU.

"A number of groups were involved in the toy collection," said Ronald Chinchilla, vice president of the Miami Benefits Club. "Two honor societies were the most active participants: the Golden Key Honor Society, which led the way, and the International Business Honors Society."

The Ryder Business Building served as a drop-off point, and students also were available to pick up items from donors.

The collection effort had a business benefit for the students, putting them in contact with members of GE Elfun, GE's non-profit service arm through which more than 400,000 employees and retirees worldwide serve their communities.

For six years, Alina Berriz, sales support manager at Telemundo 51, and her colleagues have organized Caravan of Joy through the South Florida chapter of GE Elfun. This past holiday season, the Caravan of Joy was supporting seven different charities from Homestead to Broward.

"We greatly appreciated participating with GE Elfun," Chinchilla said. "It was very beneficial for our students because they got to spend time with people from a corporation that may have job possibilities. It was particularly good to have the chance to interact with a company that has a strong commitment to community service because that fits so well with the College's vision."

The students took about half the toys they had collected to the Aventura Mall, one of the final collection points for Caravan of Joy, and the location where the toys were going to be sorted, wrapped, and boxed for delivery, an effort to which the students contributed.

Berriz praised not only the size of the contribution from our business students but also the hard work they put in to make it.

"We had collected 2,200 toys, so getting them organized, wrapped, and loaded into the truck was a huge job," said Berriz. "It would have been hard without the students' help."

Telemundo 51 and NBC 6 televised a story about the wrapping and sorting event on their 6 P.M. news broadcasts.