Cousins donate Boardwalk arcade winnings to charity

 By Cathy Kelly

 SANTA CRUZ -- Local children in need hit the jackpot Sunday when a group of young cousins skilled at Boardwalk arcade games donated scores of toys to the Santa Cruz Fire Department for distribution to county charity groups.

The four cousins, Griffin and Nora Dolin and Cayley and Braedon Nickerson, ranging in age from 9 to 13, are from San Jose and Berkeley and visit their grandmothers in Santa Cruz every two or three months, said grandmother Kate Kaufman. Kaufman is married to Karen Sommerfeld and the couple lives on the Westside.

Kaufman, a recently retired county children's mental health employee, said she read a story in the Santa Cruz Sentinel about two years ago about a Central Valley couple who donated their Boardwalk arcade winnings to a charity and the grandchildren liked the idea.

"I thought that was a great idea and that it would be a fun way to teach some values," she said. "It's that lesson, that it's just as much fun to give as to receive."
On Sunday, the group cashed in arcade winnings from a year's worth of games and got a grand total of 15,944 tickets, spending about 20 minutes feeding long strips of tickets into a tallying machine and then choosing gifts. They picked out scores of Barbies, stuffed animals, Harley Davidson models and other toys that the group bagged up and took to the fire station downtown.

Griffin, 13, of Berkeley, said he and his cousins played a variety of games to win all those tickets, and that one of his favorites was the "ball dropper," officially called the Slam-A-Winner X-treme.
"We have what we need, and this is just a fun way to do something good," he said.
His cousin, Cayley, 12, of San Jose, said she loves the family tradition of going to the Boardwalk, and wanted to share the arcade toys with children in need.

"We've been saving up for the whole year and our grandparents buy a lot of tokens," she said, with a smile.
Kaufman and Sommerfeld estimated they spent $300 on tokens this year, adding that they always stock up in December when the park offers two tokens for the price of one.

It was clear at the arcade Sunday that it was great fun to choose what to spend all those tickets on. Kaufman said that was her favorite part of the day -- watching Griffin, Cayley, Braedon, 9, and Nora, 9, jump up and down at the redemption counter.

Boardwalk employee Nichole Saucier said it was the most tickets she has ever seen in her three years working there.

"That's such an awfully nice thing to do, to donate them," Saucier said.

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