Volunteering At Toys For Tots

We spent all day Saturday (12-20-08) working at one of the Marines Toys For Tots Foundation toy distribution warehouses (click here for access to their website) that distributes toys to needy families so their children can have toys for Christmas. It was grueling, hard work for us volunteers, but it was well worth the effort. While I did shelf inventory stock-work for the 3-6 year-old boys table, Luann and Katrina worked in the baby care area (for those parents that couldn't find somebody to watch thier children so they could stop by). After lunch break, Luann and Katrina shifted over to assist me at the '3-6 Boys' counter because the counter people we had in the morning, were only there for 1/2 a day. To be honest, we had only planned to be there for the morning session ourselves, but since we could see they really needed our help, we stayed for both sessions. It was pretty busy as we teamed up together to get the boxes unloaded, the toys on the tables and then helped the parents find selections that would be good choices for their special someones...

The final tally for our distribution center was that 1117 families were able to find gifts for their 4000+ children to have for Christmas morning. We had heard about the Toys For Tots program through Luann's work and it is nice that there is something like this out there to help those in need. We hope that after reading this, you might be encouraged to help out with the Toys For Tots program in your area too.

To be honest though, this was really hard work, but with the occasional tears we glimpsed, the many times we heard "Thank-You" and the tons of smiles we saw when the parents realized that they will have something to give their children for Christmas, made every bit of work we did worth it... yeah, we'll be doing this again next year...

Note: No assumption of affiliation with the Toys For Tots program is made through the use of their logo on this site. For further details about the great work that the Toys For Tots program does for needy families in your area, please click on the link above to be taken to their official website.