KINGSTON - Maria Leighton has collected about 1,000 toys for area and military children this holiday season through a benefit she calls Santa’s Loving Angels.
Although her accounting office and home in Kingston are overflowing with toys, so many that she can hardly move, she still needs more help from the community.
Leighton, with help from Christina Ditrich of the Chopin Conservatory of Music in Danvers, Mass., is hosting a piano concert on Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Pond View Restaurant on Route 125 to benefit Santa’s Loving Angels. Tickets are $10 and all the proceeds go to the holiday cause. The restaurant’s menu and wine list will be open to the concertgoers.
"I am so excited about the possibility of such a wonderful concert for this community," Leighton said.
The concert will feature selections from Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, and Haydn as well as Christmas carols, patriotic songs and music from Tchaikovsky’s ballet "The Nutcracker." Leighton said concertgoers will get an extra special treat because Sunday’s musical selections will be played on a Steinway concert grand piano, donated especially for the performance.
Last month when Leighton’s piano tuner from M. Steinert & Sons of Boston came to tune her piano he noticed the several hundred toys piled on top of it and was interested in her cause. He was so interested he was able to have the company donate a piano for the concert.
Ditrich is Leighton’s piano instructor at the Chopin Conservatory of Music at Northshore Community College and helped organize the concert.
"I am the guru. The piano guru," Ditrich said. "She just asked me to help out. We are going to have several young artists performing. I am very excited about it."
The concert will feature pianists Rajesh Reddy, Alexander Berrian, Michelle Drapek and Leighton.
Leighton has helped Santa Claus as the Kingston post office’s Secret Santa for past three years answering area children’s letters. This year she is hoping to do a lot more and answer their letter with a toy as well.
"This is about the community giving to the community," Leighton said.
Toys will be given to about 200 children in Kingston, East Kingston, Plaistow and Hampstead, and 800 children of U.S. Marines.
Donations can be made to the effort by making checks out to Santa’s Loving Angels and sending them to 66 Route 125, Kingston, NH 03848. New toys and gifts for children can also be dropped off at this address.
