You’ve seen the boxes everywhere. Whether they’re at your workplace, a local fire station or car dealership, the cardboard boxes overflowing with toys are as synonymous with Christmas as any blinking tree or carol on the radio.
For 66 years, the U.S Marine Corps Reserve’s Toys for Tots program has helped make Christmas more enjoyable for millions of children in need. In the program’s Greater Boston region, which includes all of Suffolk County, Norfolk County and northern Plymouth County, residents donated roughly 150,000 toys this holiday season – about 10,000 more toys than last year.
“Everything that we collect in these towns stays locally,” Sgt. Jaime Gomez, Greater Boston’s Toys for Tots coordinator, said. “There have been some rumors that we were shipping (toys) off overseas, but we’re not designed for that.
“Literally, everything we collect – 100 percent of what is collected in Greater Boston – stays in Greater Boston.”
Although volunteers report to Toys for Tots’ Boston warehouse in mid-October, many collection sites, including local fire stations and an assortment of businesses, collect toys from early November to mid-December. Some businesses, like the Stop Shop corporate headquarters in Quincy, encourage their employees to donate, while other partners, like Cagney’s Pub in Quincy and Brady’s Package Store in East Weymouth, rely on customer contributions.
“It’s always very enthusiastically supported,” Judi Palmer, a spokeswoman for Stop Shop New England, said.
The deadline for dropping off toys was last Friday, and the Marines have since been dropping the goods off at local charitable organizations and churches. Toys for Tots does not give gifts to individual families; instead, they partner with local groups, like Born Again International Ministries in North Quincy and Blue Hills Healthy Families in Weymouth, which respond to specific requests from families in need.
Individuals can organize Toys for Tots drives, too. For example, friends and family of Sally Alexander, a Hanover woman who died from cancer this past June, organized a drive in her memory and collected more than 430 toys.
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