Marines’ Toys for Tots Leaves Many Christmas Wishes Unfulfilled

A few days ago, the Marine Corps Reserve’s Toys for Tots program contacted Para Los Ninos, the large Skid Row community organization, asking if a few children could pose for promotional shots with a Marine colonel in dress blues.

The group, which had already participated in a similar promotion a month earlier, was happy to help and came up with four children who fawned over the colonel as the photographer snapped away.

But with Christmas quickly approaching, workers at Para Los Ninos are flabbergasted that despite their help in promoting the program and being one of highest priority groups in the past to receive toys, they have gotten nothing so far.

“Not a toy,” one worker said. “I guess they have other priorities.”

Nearly 100,000 needy children will receive toys this year from the Los Angeles Toys for Tots program, but community workers say thousands of other children will receive nothing, partly because of a decline in donations and disorganization in the program.

Requests for toys have gone unanswered, longtime recipients have been put at the end of priority lists, and some organizations say they believe they were simply forgotten in the confusion.

The Los Angeles International Airport Optimist Club was depending on Toys For Tots for a Christmas party at Orthopaedic Hospital last Saturday.

The group had been promised 300 toys, but when the time came, there was nothing for them. Club members scrambled on the day of the party to buy $1,500 worth of toys for the children, said Bly Schwierking of the Optimist Club.

“This is the first time in 30 years that I can remember not getting anything,” he said. “I have no idea what happened.”

Gunnery Sgt. Charles Gaston, an organizer of the program, agreed this year has been an ordeal.

To begin with, donations have fallen far short of demand. Just three years ago, the Marines received more than 165,000 toys. This year, Gaston figures he will be lucky if he gets 100,000.

“I’m short 30,000 toys,” he said. “What can I do?”

Gaston said the program was thrown into disarray after the closure earlier this year of Donor Service, a nonprofit group that helped organizations apply for toys and screened the applicants for the Marines.

With the closure of Donor Service, many community groups were unaware that they had to apply on their own. When they did apply, their applications were late, throwing them to the bottom of the Toys for Tots waiting list.

Gaston said the Marines were unprepared to handle the screening of applicants, which they had never done before.

Some community workers said the Marines should have figured out the problem or at least done a better job of accommodating the organizations that used Donor Service, which had assisted some of the biggest and neediest groups in the city.

Capt. Saul Hernandez, supervisor of the Los Angeles Toys for Tots program, agreed that the Donor Service applicants were handled poorly.

“We need volunteers to help us set it up. We don’t have the manpower, knowledge or capability to handle this anymore,” Hernandez said. “It’s beyond our scope now. We would love it if someone would come in and take care of this and we provide the manpower.”

But many organizations that applied on their own also ran into problems.

Schwierking of the Optimist Club said he applied months in advance to the Marines but never heard back. He was finally contacted three days after the party at Orthopaedic Hospital.

Joseph Martinez, a disabled Marine Corps veteran who sponsors a series of Christmas parties for other disabled vets, said he never expected any problems with Toys for Tots because he has gotten toys every year. However, he was told this year that he would get nothing because he applied late.

“It’s not like they didn’t know I was coming,” he said. “I’ve been going to them for nine years.”

Martinez, the East Los Angeles veterans representative for the California Employment Development Department, eventually went back in desperation to Toys for Tots just a few hours before a party he was holding for 100 children of disabled veterans. He pleaded with Gaston and was given 50 toys.

“I’m not trying to put it all on the Marines, but it is sad,” Martinez said. “I’m trying to keep a good heart, but if they do the same thing next year, it’s over for me. I’ll call the Marine Corps commandant and say, ‘Kick this group out. It’s not working anymore.’ ”

Gil Silva, program director at the Eastside Boys and Girls Club, had asked for 625 toys, but ended up with 100--and at least a third of those were for toddlers.

“Our kids are 7 to 17,” he said. “Those toys aren’t going to do us any good.”

Silva offered to trade some toys two for one but was refused.

A party he had scheduled for 275 children has been scaled back to 20, he said. “I have no idea how the system is run,” he said. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Despite the problems, few community workers were angry at the Marines, saying they recognize they are doing the best they can.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Silva said. “We’ve never complained. We’re happy for what we got.”

But they add that the lack of toys has made this Christmas a sad affair for some children.

Nina Lockard, a social services coordinator for the Central American Refugee Center, said the group was depending on toys from the Marines for a Christmas party last Sunday at Immaculate Conception Church.

Lockard said she called in November and wrote a letter asking for toys, but never heard back.

On the day of the party, she said, only about 800 of the 1,000 refugee children received presents, which came from other sources. “We told them that we would try to get more toys,” she said. So far, however, they are still looking.

“It was a very hard thing to tell the children,” she said. “We all felt bad.”