By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The 2023 Leadership Hays class is partnering with Camber Children's Mental Health Center in Hays for a recreational item donation drive.
The Camber facility includes acute and residential pediatric mental health beds. Camber was formerly known as KVC, which was at the Hadley Center.
Camber gives preference to youth from western Kansas. It can accommodate 14 youths in its acute unit and 18 in its residential unit.
The Leadership Hays group each year picks a community project that benefits youth.
Camber, which is in a new facility, is in need of craft supplies and games. The drive will begin Sunday and run through June 24.
Supplies should be for children ages 7 to 17
Items can be new or gently used.
Items needed
• Paper, no spiral notebooks
• Craft projects with no string, wire or metal. No pipe cleaners
• Games
• Card games
• Lawn games
"If you have a board game that has been sitting in your closet for four years, [donate it]. I have several of those that will be donated," said Laura Allen, Leadership Hays class member from First Call for Help.
The items will be sorted before they go to Camber to make sure all of the items are appropriate for the youth in that setting.
Sarah Berens of Camber said the need for these items is twofold.
"The one aspect is that a lot of these items can be used in therapeutic treatment," she said, "Whether that's group therapy or individual family, one can use a lot of those expressive therapy techniques to help them process their trauma.
"The other one is while they are there, we want to provide them ways to be just a kid as well. If you were doing treatment 24/7, that would be very difficult emotionally to process. You have to have some times where you have some relief from that and some normal activities."
Drop-off locations will include:
• Hays Chamber, 2700 Vine
• Forsyth Library on the Fort Hays State University campus
• Bank of Hays, 1000 W. 27th
• First Kansas Bank, 1200 E. 27th
• Nex-Tech on 13th Street
The Leadership Hays class was given some seed money from Hays Chamber, which will be used to purchase an outdoor inflatable screen and a karaoke machine.
Camber also can accept monetary donations. If you wish to make a monetary donation, you can do so through Camber's website. Select the Hays location. If you choose "Other" under "Designation" on the donation page, you can specify this project.
You can also drop off a check at the Hays Chamber office with the tag Camber or Leadership Hays.
Monetary donations will also go toward Camber building an outdoor shelter at its new location and for playground equipment. The equipment has to meet the needs of youth with mental health needs.
"The Chamber Leadership program, I feel, has been very eye-opening. I came in not knowing what it was, and it has brought this group of people together," said Janice Jacobs, Leadership Hays class member from Vyve. "We went to a leadership conference in Wichita and learned a lot about developing our skills as leaders in our community.
"I feel we had different ideas and suggestions, and you work through as a group and a team ... It's just been fun."
JAG-K, which is a program at Hays High School that builds support around at-risk students, will be continuing the program after this year.
JAG-K already regularly participates in service projects, including blood drives and a hygiene-item drive for the HHS pantry last year.
"The toy drive seemed like a good thing we could perpetuate from year to year," Bryan Zollinger, JAG-K instructor, said.
Zollinger said the high school students benefit from hands-on learning.
"There's a lot of people if you involve them in the actual doing of the project rather than receiving the information, they pick up on that stuff," he said. "They learn some transferrable skills they can take into the workplace, post-graduation."