Casino Queen to Host Annual Toyland Event Benefiting Young East St. Louis Children

In order to help make the holiday’s memorable for more than 2,000 students in School District 189, Santa Claus is making a special stop at the Casino Queen Hotel in East St. Louis to hand out Christmas presents and spread a little cheer on December 11th and 12th from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The Toyland event began 18 years ago, and has brought joy and happiness to more than 34,000 children since.

Students will take a bus ride to the Casino Queen Hotel where they will be greeted by Santa, Mrs. Claus and Elves. After they visit with Santa, each child will be given a holiday gift bag complete with 15 gifts. This year’s gift bag includes: winter gloves, warm knit caps, socks, a poncho, a presidential ruler, four educational coloring books, crayons, the book The Golden Ring, a wiffle ball set, a little doctor’s medical kit, a rocket ball air game and animal cracker snacks.

Casino Queen employees and volunteers will be transforming the hotel ballroom into a Winter Wonderland on Monday, Dec. 10, in time for Toyland 2012. Approximately two dozen student athletes from the baseball team of Southwestern Illinois College and district 189 representatives are scheduled to volunteer at Toyland as Santa’s elves and helpers, taking time out of their busy schedules to assist with this special event.

The Casino Queen will also donate some of the gifts to various other chartable non-profit organizations in the East St. Louis Region.

Casino Queen, located at 200 South Front Street in East St. Louis, Ill., was established in 1993 and has since made more than $10 million in charitable contributions and invested more than $200 million in capital improvements on the East St. Louis riverfront. For the past six years, Casino Queen has been recognized for having the nation’s highest slot payback among individual casinos by Casino Player Magazine. For more information, visit www.casinoqueen.com. You can also find Casino Queen on Facebookand Twitter. 

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