Girl, 7, donates 110 stuffed animals

WASILLA — Those who know Angelique Sitbon best say they weren’t at all surprised she was able to collect 110 stuffed animals for donation to the local fire department.

“It really wasn’t surprising. She loves giving and she loves doing fund-raisers,” said her mother, Tiana Sitbon.

Sitbon’s elementary school teacher, Louise Ralston at Iditarod Elementary, said Angelique has told her she wants to work at an orphanage in Africa when she’s older.

“I just asked her if she wanted to head this up and she just went for it,” Ralston said. And why was there a need for so many stuffed animals? Maybe it’s best to just let Angelique explain.

“The kids who had their house burn down, they don’t have anything else because everything burnt down in the fire so they would like a stuffed animal to hug,” the 7-year-old said.

Ralston, Angelique and the girl’s family presented the stuffed animals Tuesday to firefighters assembled for a training night at the Central Mat-Su Fire Department’s big downtown station. The box Angelique set out at school to collected donations spilled over into several large black trash bags. There were stuffed bunnies, bears, tigers and kitties.

Angelique never stopped smiling. She was wrapped in a blanket to keep warm since she’d come to the event straight from the swimming pool. Longtime Central responder Dorte Mobley read a brief statement on behalf of Angelique and then hoisted the girl onto a table to receive a round of applause. Afterward, Mobely showed Angelique and her family around the department’s equipment bays where the big trucks are stored. Angelique and her siblings left with plastic toy fire helmets.

Fire Chief James Steele said the department hands out stuffed animals whenever they can to children at the scenes of things like car accidents and house fires. The department will keep one or two animals on hand in each of its ambulances, since, unlike fire trucks, those are the emergency vehicles that show up to nearly every scene.

He said that most of the animals come in as donations. But having 110 show up at once is something he’s never seen happen.

“To see a kid doing something like that for other kids is just great,” Steele said.

Tiana Sitbon said her daughter always gets very excited about fund-raisers at their church — Church on the Rock — which periodically raises money to help orphans in Kenya.

Tiana Sitbon said Angelique will often come up with fund-raising ideas on her own. She once sold enough cups of hot chocolate at 50 cents a cup to send $32 to Kenya.

When her daughter came home with the idea to collect stuffed animals, Tiana Sitbon made it a family project to build and decorate a donation bin to hold the animals as they came in.

Ralston said Monday that all of the donated animals were in good shape. The drive was set to last two weeks but ran longer than expected. On Monday, the eve of the presentation at the fire station, parents who’d just heard about the project were asking if Tuesday morning was too late to bring in donations.

She said she was able to squeeze a math lesson out of the project as well — on Monday the kids arranged the animals into groups of 10 and counted them all. That they just happened to add up to a round number was kind of a bonus, she said.

“It was perfect,” Ralston said.

Though her own daughter’s generosity and enthusiasm were not surprising to Tiana Sitbon, the reaction was. Her daughter tends to embark on these missions on her own.

“I was surprised at the way everyone else pitched in,” she said.

This might be the start of a regular event in the Sitbon household.

“She said she would like to do it every year,” Tiana Sitbon said.

And how does all this generosity make Angelique feel?

“It makes me feel happy,” she said simply.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.