NORWICH – Every year since its founding in 1947 by Marine reservist Major William L. Hendricks, Toys for Tots has striven against all odds to make sure as many children as possible avoid suffering a joyless Christmas. The thought of children awaking to barren Christmas trees within sight of homes where more fortunate tykes are fervently ripping through wrapping paper with feverish fingers, may bring sorrow to some, but there are those who are willing make the small efforts it takes to ebb a poor child’s heartache.
“The toys are more than just things,” said Chenango County Toys for Tots coordinator Roger Barnhart. “No, the toys really are just tools, symbols, for parents to show their children they care about them, and for children to know deep down that they are loved.”
Chenango County Toys for Tots benefits from having a number of different sponsors, including Roots & Wings, The Label Gallery in Norwich, the Marine Corps, as well as regular volunteering from the Opportunities for Chenango staff, the “Beautify Chenango County” program, and from the community in general.
Earlier this week, Roots & Wings Administrator Melinda Mandeville and her posse of volunteers, armed only with dangerously kind hearts, assembled at Toys for Tots’ new location in the old Rite Aid building, to start setting up for the holiday season.
“We’re calling it Left Aid,” joked Mandeville. The Rite Aid corporation donated the use of its vacant building on 90 North Broad St. in Norwich to Toys for Tots this year and organizers are very enthusiastic about the new venue. “We have so much available parking here and its a hub location,” she said. Organizers plan to decorate the windows with signs for Toys for Tots to make the location easy to identify.
In past years, volunteers picked toys based on the information given to them from the parents such as, age, gender, and interests, to assemble the packages for the kids. This year though, the “Left Aid” contingent are doing things a little differently. Instead, they plan to call up the enlisted parents and invite them into their base of operations for a chance to personally select the toys for their young whippersnappers. The perusing parents will be accompanied by a volunteer escort to see them through their journey at “Left Aid.” Parents are also asked to bring birth certificate to authenticate the existence of their child and avoid doppelganger gift-giving.
“We think that once the system has been established, things will be easier and less time consuming then when we had volunteers pick out gifts for people. Also, we believe the parents themselves will be much more satisfied,” said Mandeville.
Members of the “Beautify Chenango County” program will be coming in and helping with the toy sorting and escorting the parents, said Teresa Foster-Jones from the Chenango unit of the Department of Labor. The program brings people on welfare into work environments so they can learn new skills and potentially decrease their unemployment time.
“We are really excited about the new system, the location, and I think things will go smoothly this year,” said Foster-Jones.
The Toys for Tots train will be making its annual stop in Bainbridge Dec. 8, as part of its state wide trip. The Chenango Toys for Tots organizers put in an order with the Marines Corps headquartered in Albany telling them how many kids they have signed up so far and passes along their information so the Marines can bring one toy for each kid.
“We probably have around 1,200 kids signed up so far,” said Mandeville on Monday. Last year the organization serviced 1,779 kids, collected 3,800 toys, purchased another 600, and made sure children across the county awoke Christmas morning to a collective total of 6,183 extra toys. Parents still have until Dec. 14 to sign up.
The volunteers will open their doors during a two-day event on the week of Dec. 17, and will be making calls beforehand to let people knew when exactly they should come in. Frontier Communications also donates phone lines for volunteers to use when making the calls.
People are asked to make any donations they can find it in their hearts to give and conveniently located drop boxes are dispersed throughout the county. The Label Gallery helps collect the donated toys and transport them to where they need to be.
“Everyone is working very hard and hoping for a good year,” said Gail Lawrence of The Label Gallery. “This is all about the children and knowing they will see presents under their trees is the whole reason we have been involved for over a decade,” she said.
“Things are tight, just like with any other non-for-profit, and with the economy the way it is there just isn’t a whole lot to go around,” said Barnhart. Even so, they have never had to turn anyone away – which Barnhart attributes to the collective generosity the county’s populace. “It is the people from the community who are the ones that make this possible. Sure we have volunteers, but we are just the hands, and its the community which gives us the toys and do all the other little things to make this possible,” he said.