BURBANK : Equestrian Center Launches Toy Drive

The Los Angeles Equestrian Center has started a drive to collect as many as 200 toys for an organization that distributes the items to poor children on reservations throughout the West.

The effort is part of a larger toy drive campaign in which the Red Cloud American Indian Society, based in Irvine, plans to ship 7,000 wrapped Christmas gifts to children in 20 reservations or Native American groups in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Minnesota.

“We send them into the most impoverished areas we can find,” said Hugh Margesson, executive director of the society, which recently opened a branch that meets in Burbank. “On the reservations we support, there is no such thing as a Toys R Us or a K mart or a Wal-Mart.”

This is the seventh year the toy drive has been run by the society, which deals with issues such as hunger, housing and education of Native Americans. The Equestrian Center joined the toy drive for the first time last year after a newspaper article appeared publicizing the effort, Margesson said.

The center collected about 100 toys last year and is trying to double that this year, according to center officials.

Other charities, such as the Telephone Pioneers of America, and businesses, such as Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, also donate toys.

The society is collecting wrapped toys for children of any age. The Equestrian Center is wrapping toys that are being dropped off.

Toys collected will be shipped out of the Equestrian Center on Dec. 18, but both the center and the Red Cloud American Indian Society will continue collecting toys until just before Christmas.

“We’ll probably be delivering them to reservations in Arizona right up until the day before Christmas,” Margesson said.

The society also is collecting clothing and boots. Margesson said he expects to fill a truck with clothing donated by various companies.

Red Cloud is now distributing 35,000 pairs of shoes to reservations. It also recently shipped 160,000 books as part of an educational program.

Toys can be dropped off at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center front office at 480 Riverside Drive in Burbank.