A group of area teen-agers are working to collect up to 800 stuffed animals to give to care-home residents at Christmas.

They will be accepting donations until Wednesday, Dec. 21. The drop-off site is at the MRPS Hall, 133 North Grant Avenue. Angela Seamas, 18, and her friends will be at the Portuguese Hall Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays from 8 a.m. until noon to receive the donations. The hall is located between Yosemite Avenue and Center Street.

Seamas said they are looking for “preferably stuffed animals;” however, “some people have given us money to buy stuffed animals.” The donations can be “gently used or new,” she added.

The project is the brainchild of Seamas, who graduated from Manteca High in June and is registered to start at Modesto Junior College in the spring. She said it was inspired by her late grandmother, Mary Seamas, who passed away in March of this year.

“About three years ago, she was diagnosed with dementia and she forgot about everybody except for me. I was the only one she fully remembered. She remembered my parents only off and on, but there was never a time she forgot who I was,” said Seamas, the only child of Joe and Veronica Seamas of Manteca.

“When I was in high school, I got kicked out because I missed so much school because I spent so much time with her. I went to Calla to catch up. I excelled at Calla and went back to Manteca High to graduate,” she said.

Unfortunately, the family had to make the hard decision of “putting her at a rest home – at Manteca Care and Rehabilitation” where she could get care 24/7. “She needed somebody that knew what to do – because we could only do so much – who knew what kind of medicine she needed and when,” said Seamas.

“We took care of her for about two years (at home),” she said.

“When she was in the rest home, I was there as often as I could because I played basketball (at school) and worked at Little Caesar’s everyday during my senior y ear. I work at the (Modesto) mall now at Vons shoe store. But I couldn’t be there all the time, and she wouldn’t take her medicine unless I was there,” recalled Seamas.

“As the disease advanced, she started getting more upset. So I got her a white tiger animal and just brought it to her one night, like I was the stuffed animal. And she loved it. It never left her side. She played with it. She fought with it. It was like her child. She pretended it was her great-grandchild. She thought the animal was my child. From the day I gave it to her to the day she died, they couldn’t take it away from her. She grabbed it like she wouldn’t let go,” said Seamas.

They registered her grandmother at Manteca Care and Rehab on Christmas Day 2010, although she spent Christmas at home with the family. On March 19, she was taken to the hospital, and passed away on March 27.

It was during her visits to her grandmother at the care home that Seamas noticed “probably 50 other people sitting in the hallway.”

Because her grandmother had dementia, Seamas thought a stuffed animal “would comfort her a lot” at the care home.

And when she noted how much the stuffed animal comforted her grandmother, she thought the other patients would benefit from one, too, and not just those with dementia.

It’s also a way to let them know that “someone cares enough to give it to them,” Seamas said.

From there, the stuffed animal drive in memory of her grandma was born.

With the help of her friends and “a whole bunch of people,” they started out by “(handing) out flyers everywhere” asking for donations.

At first, their plan was to distribute the stuffed toys to the patients at Manteca Care and Rehab. However, they have also contacted other places since such as Prestige Senior Living and Merrill Gardens in Manteca.

Their aim is to collect enough stuffed toys for each of the 170 residents at each facility. “We’re hoping to get at least 600, but we have a goal of 800. Any extras, we plan to extend it to at least one rest home in Ripon,” Seamas said.

They plan to distribute the gifts at the rest homes on Dec. 23. They will have a volunteer sign-up at the drop-off site to help with the distribution.

Seamas said there is another reason why she and her friends are doing this project.

“Our generation – me and my friends – are being stereotyped as having the most gangsters and troublemakers, just punks. We have talked about that. We want to show that we care about our elders – both my grandparents were amazing. We want to make an impact that we actually care,” Seamas said.

Whether they will do this again next year will depend upon “how much we succeed with it; it all depends on how well we do this year,” she said.

For more information about how to make a donation, call (209) 479-2560 or go to Angela Seamas’ facebook and look for “event.”