I grew up in a village in China, didn’t remember I had a toy until started my elementary school in a township where my father had worked in the past nearly two decades. I remember I only had two toys that I shared with my sister : a pink pig, and a white bear. They both were small. My sister and I used the pink pig as a pillow for many years.
I didn’t get a chance to ride Merry-go-around until I was in my senior high school year either, and didn’t go to a real amusement park until May 25th of 2013 when Matt treated me a trip to Kennywood along with my brother and sister in-laws’ family as a graduation gift. I don’t intend to complain about those many experience I didn’t have during my upbringing, in actuality, my grandparent, parents and sister gave me so much great memories that can’t be put on a price tag.
I was just thinking maybe every person has a dream of never growing up and in that dream, there must be a companion position fulfilled by some kind of toys. It might be a stuffed animal, a Smokey Ranger Bear, a Barby, or an Easter Bunny………
When we moved to our new home, my mother-in-law, at the time was still reasonable to be around, gave me a Smokey Ranger Bear from Matt’s childhood. I carried that cute creature around the following several weeks while trying to put things together in this new home. Not until then, I realized that how wonderful for a kid to have toys, a lot of them, growing up.
For this very personal reason, I want to share a wonderful program that is active in Pittsburgh community: +Toys For Tots , made possible by U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Marine Toys for Tots Foundation, Corporate America, Many Donors, and local volunteer organization +Pittsburgh Cares . Fortunately I was part of Santa’s team in 2013’s Christmas gift give-away event.
Every year, Marine Toys for Tots Foundation would accept toys or cash donations from corporate America, retailing stores, and individual donors from all over the country to prepare a large reserve of toys for the annual give-away events in many cities. Locally in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Cares, is the volunteer managing organization helping with the toys selection, application processing-nonprofit and individual, warehouse management, volunteer recruitment/management, and toys distribution. Marine Corps Reserve soldiers would help and manage a big portion of the application processing, toys inventory and distribution, and entire program management. Starting from early December, those nonprofit applicants start to pick up required gifts for the population they serve in their community, towards the end of the give-away event, there would be 2-3 days open house event for individual applicants to pick up gifts for kids in their family. It’s the open house event that I was part of.
In 2013, the warehouse for the Toys for Tots event was Guardian Self Storage building located on 2839 Liberty Avenue in Strip District of Pittsburgh. It was so very cold in the warehouse and even colder outside on the street, the line of people waiting to pick up gifts was already so long before the door was even open. The majority applicants are African Americans, some White folks, and few internationals. But nevertheless, they are all people who needs this type of help. Who doesn’t once in a while in our lifetime?
The entire Pittsburgh Cares crew--from Executive Director Ms. +Deb Hopkins to us +AmeriCorps VISTA s, along with those many Marines were all pumped to have a tough yet fulfilling day. Somebody even got a chance to be Elves to deliver the gift from “North Pole” (5th floor of the storage building) to Santa’s warehouse in Pittsburgh (First floor of the building where Santa Marines deliver the toys to parents/grandparents). I guess it is those parents and grandparents who will ultimately be the Santa to sneak the gifts down through the Chimney until they rest under the Christmas tree waiting to be opened by curious Children the very next morning after Christmas Eve….Like they always do.
I absolutely loved the spirits. Many kids were volunteering to run back and forth from North Poles to Santa’s Pittsburgh Warehouse to help those other less privileged kids for the Christmas. I thought this is so wonderful. +Amanda Trocki , the manager of this program on Pittsburgh Cares side for the night, the Business Cares Director of Pittsburgh Cares for the day, lovely person, granted my desire to be at the reception table to check in people. I got to have first-hand experience with those folks. They all seem to have a hell of a life that has something worthy of being told, unfortunately I didn’t get chance to know any of them. Our goal was to check in as many people as we can, collect some basic demographic data, then move on to the next one. Later on, a Marine offered me to serve as an Elf for a while, and I jumped on it just to experience more. So I started to run from 5th floor to the first floor via elevator of course (Americans prefer taking elevator to climbing stair steps for sure. I thought American Elves must take elevators too when they have an option.) It was fun!
Bike is the most popular gift most people desires. The majority don’t have preference, as they said,”We would appreciate whatever we can have.” . Not having a preference in life may not be a bad thing. But if you read newspaper, those big names in Hollywood always use unpaid interns for many rewarding work as well as many unrewarding menial work such as finding a particular type of candle with the exact desired scent, picking up a particular type of lunch from a particular store, and shopping for a special brand of pillows for editing room so that when they have to stay up late, they won’t kill their back, and etc. Those privileged folks seem to have the most standards and preference in life. Maybe not having a preference is not necessary a bad thing, but if it is connected to lacking of choices and resources, then it might be BAD, then people may be better off working hard to change the situation.
Anyways, back to the Toys for Tots event. I loved it completely. Amazed by the Pittsburgh Cares morale and the Marine Corps Reserve’s spirits. They are thinking to maybe change a location for the warehouse next year due to the distance between North Pole and Santa’s warehouse, as well as the harsh coldness in the working area all volunteers and applicants have to endure. But I know for sure, that spirits and morale of getting kids toys for Christmas will never change however cold the weather is or wherever they will be checking in folks, distributing lucky numbers, and shouting out those numbers parents/grandparents are hopeful holding to be called upon.
Beer winning trivia @ Toys for Tots
Toys for Tots is a program run by the United States Marine Corps Reserve which distributes toys to children whose parents cannot afford to buy them gifts for Christmas. The program was founded in 1947 by reservist Major Bill Hendricks who was inspired by his wife Diane when she tried to donate a homemade doll to a needy child but could find no organization to do so. Their efforts were so successful that, in 1948, Toys for Tots was launched as a national campaign. Hendricks used his position as director of Public Relations for Warner Brothers Studio to enlist celebrity support, as well as have Walt Disney Studio design the red toy train logo. Until 1979, Marine reservists and volunteers would collect and refurbish used toys. In 1980, only new toys were accepted, as reservists were no longer able to dedicate drill hours to refurbish toys, as well as legal concerns and the mixed message of giving hand-me-downs as a message of hope. In 1991, the Secretary of Defense authorized the creation and affiliation with the non-profit charity foundation. In 1995, the Secretary of Defense approved Toys for Tots as an official mission of the Marine Corps Reserve. As of 2013, 469 million toys have been distributed.
ID @ Toys for Tots
Where is Deb in the picture?
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