NORTHAMPTON — By 1964, the first round of local Baby Boomers had created a bit of a logjam at Northampton High School, with students taking classes under a staggered schedule to relieve crowded classrooms.

The issue had started even earlier, says Kathy LaCroix, a 1964 NHS graduate who attended Jackson Street School for part of her elementary school years. There, she said with a laugh, “They had us in closets and the library and the gymnasium, wherever they could fit us in.”

Maybe it was that physical closeness that helped make the 1964 high school class a pretty tight-knit group. Until the pandemic arrived, they hosted reunions about every five years, and many class members were in touch much more often, as a good number of them remained in the area.

“Before COVID, 10 to 11 of us, all women, used to meet for lunch pretty regularly,” said LaCroix.

And last year and again this year, LaCroix and her NHS classmate and lifelong friend Linda Netto have turned to the Sidney F. Smith Toy Fund as another means for thinking of old friends and classmates no longer with them.

“We were born in 1946, right after the war, so we’re pretty far along now,” said LaCroix, who’s 77 and lives in Easthampton.

She and Netto, also 77, have known each other since they were toddlers. They grew up on Elizabeth Street and walked to Bridge Street School together until LaCroix’s family moved to a different part of town. But they were reunited in junior high and then at what everyone in those days called Hamp High.

“Kathy’s my oldest and dearest friend,” said Netto, who lives in Northampton with her husband, Michael Netto, another 1964 NHS graduate.

Last year, Linda Netto donated to the Toy Fund to honor seven classmates, including Kathy’s late husband, Gary LaCroix, who had passed in recent years.

“It’s important that kids have presents at this time of year,” said Netto. “It just seems like a nice way to remember the people you were close to.”

Named after a former business manager at the Gazette, the Toy Fund began in 1933 to help families in need during the Depression. Today, the fund distributes vouchers worth $50 to qualifying families for each child from age 1 to 14.

This year, LaCroix is making a donation to the fund in honor of those same classmates, including Peggy Ensor of Florence, who died last year.

“I saw her at the end in hospice, and it was hard,” said LaCroix. “Peggy was a wonderful person.”

Making a donation to the Toy Fund, and helping people in other ways — LaCroix says she donates food at the Easthampton Community Center — seems especially important at this time of year, she notes.

“I think [former classmates] would appreciate what we’re doing,” she said. “We were a tight group, and everyone always helped each other out and was there for you.”

To be eligible for the Toy Fund, families must live in any Hampshire County community except Ware, or in the southern Franklin County towns of Deerfield, Sunderland, Whately, Shutesbury and Leverett, and in Holyoke in Hampden County.

The following stores are participating this year: A2Z Science and Learning Store, 57 King St., Northampton; Blue Marble/Little Blue, 150 Main St., Level 1, Northampton; High Five Books, 141 N. Main St., Florence; The Toy Box, 201 N. Pleasant St., Amherst; Comics N More, 64 Cottage St., Easthampton; Once Upon A Child,1458 Riverdale St., West Springfield; Plato’s Closet, 1472 Riverdale St., West Springfield; Sam’s Outdoor Outfitters, 227 Russell St., Hadley; Odyssey Bookshop, 9 College St., Village Commons, South Hadley; The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, 125 W. Bay Road, Amherst; World Eye Bookshop, 134 Main St., Greenfield; Holyoke Sporting Goods Co., and 1584 Dwight St. No. 1, Holyoke.

Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.