Your Turn

Some twenty-eight years ago, Toys for Tots was started in Helena over a cup of black coffee in the local Marine Corps recruiter’s office.

Two Marines, one on active duty and the other a former active duty Marine. Both talking about what they could do to repay the local community, at Christmas time. It is unknown, even to this date, as to whose idea it was, but believe me; Toys for Tots had its start in the year of 1978 over a cup of black coffee in the dilapidated office of the Marine Corps recruiter here in Helena.

That year, we garnered only about 200 toys and were able to assist approximately 100 children, but the seed has been planted. In those years, there was not a Toys for Tots Foundation to assist our program as there is today.

As we come to an end with the 2006 Toys for Tots Campaign, I now commence to complete the stats and do the copious amount of paper work for the Foundation and the IRS.

The “After Action Report” and this letter advises our Toys for Tots staff and the local citizens, how we did and how much their cooperation, donations, sacrifices, volunteer time and love of our less fortunate families has benefited our community.

A sidebar to this is that three of our volunteers, Beth, Jill and Patti, delivered Christmas gifts to unsuspecting families on Christmas Eve.

This year we have noticed that there were more folks getting involved, wanting to donate toys and financially assisting us to purchase needed items for our children but, most of all, they just wanted to join in the program and say that they did their share to help our less fortunate. This year there were 72 volunteers donating over 2,000 hours to the program and 63 drop-off sites for toy pick up. Our collection sites at the big local businesses kept their boxes and barrels beyond the Christmas deadline, swelling our surplus for next year. This surplus of toys is a much needed part of our program; it enables us to support all our local welfare organizations as well as children in Townsend, Boulder, Montana City, and Lincoln. Also, it must be noted that we assist local families that have been burned out of their homes and those families that are in need of toys and books throughout the year due to a grievous emergency.

Synopsis of 2006 T4T’s Campaign:

Total number of toys collected: 14,581

Total number of toys purchased: 1,473

Total cost of toys purchased: $13,311.78

Total number of toys received from the foundation: 656

Total number of children assisted: 4,025

(City of Helena: 2705)

Number of toys carryover for the 2007 campaign: 2,341

Cash donations: $12,093.68

Over 175,000 books received from Scholastic Books have been delivered to Montana small schools; some of the 33,772 Beanie Babies have found their way into the local DARE program to assist both the sheriff’s office and the Helena Police Department. Some of the ou-of-state shipments to Helena of poker games, videos and books from eastern corporations, as well as west coast corporations were redirected to other Toys for Tots coordinators who were in need of the goods at Christmas.

For the Toys for Tots program to be an effective activity to help folks, we needed volunteers, donors, businesses and schools, as well as the local civilian population to make this program a viable one. This program belongs to the citizens of Helena, the folks that make it work.

To the volunteers: thank you for all you do for our community. You are to be commended for all your volunteer hours that you so generously dedicated to the program. For the Toys for Tots planning committee and the Salvation Army, again you have done an exemplary job, not only in team effort, but in the administration of our program.

James E. Heffenan is coordinator of Helena’s Toys for Tots.