MIDDLEBURY, Conn. — Hundreds of college and high school students working at Quassy Amusement and Waterpark here help provide memorable experiences to guests on a daily basis during the height of the summer season.

Some of the same staff members have also been making a difference in local and area communities through a park-sponsored initiative titled Quassy Cares.

 “It’s been an active, yet low-key, initiative here at the park for a couple of years,” Quassy President Eric Anderson said of the program. “We’ve had some of our employees take part in reading programs for youngsters and this year we’re doing a toy drive for less fortunate families in the state.”

The toy drive at Quassy was set up this summer through the Connecticut Recreation and Parks Association (CRPA) in Newington as well as Christmas Wish CT, a charity committed to sharing the spirit of Christmas 365 days a year.

Quassy Cares joined the campaign and for each toy brought in by a park employee, Quassy Amusement and Waterpark will match the contribution.

The lakeside property, now in its 111^th year, has also assisted at local soup kitchens in the past, helping to provide meals for those in need.

This spring the family-owned business also put together a service cart which occasionally cruises along the Middlebury Greenway, a leisure trail where the electrified trolley line that serviced the park in its early days once stood. Quassy employs help pick up any debris found along the paved greenway and dispose of it.

Some of the park’s other philanthropic endeavors date back for decades.

“We’ve long supported the Greater Waterbury Campership Fund,” Anderson said of the local program which helps send underprivileged children to summer camp. “Our involvement with Campership goes back as long as any of us can remember. We’ve also done ‘3-D’ fireworks on July 4th now for more than 10 years and give the proceeds from the glasses sale to a charitable organization.”

“Quassy Cares was established to give the many young people working at the park an opportunity to make a difference in the communities that we have served for more than a century,” the park official asserted. “It’s great to see them step up to the plate and become part of it.”

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