Many of our preserves participate in holiday charities. One popular charity is Toys for Tots. Check with your preserve to see if they are participating. In the meantime – here’s a bit of history on this wonderful charity.
In 1947 Diane Hendricks asked her husband, Bill, a major with the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves in Los Angeles to deliver a doll she had made to an agency that gave toys to needy children at Christmastime. He soon discovered that no such agency existed, so Diane encouraged him to start one. That Christmas, Bill and a group of Marine reservists delivered 5,000 toys. The project was so successful that, in 1948, the Marine Corps adopted the Toys for Tots program and extended it across the nation. And so the legendary holiday charity was born. For the first national campaign, Walt Disney designed a poster for the program, as well as the Toys for Tots logo that is still used today. Since 1947, more than 335 million toys have been delivered to nearly 160 million children in approximately 500 communities across the United States and Puerto Rico.
Source: howstuffworks.com