Toys for Tots Gets Help From Simi Rotary

The Marine Corps Reserves’ annual Toys for Tots drive--strapped this year due to declining corporate donations--got a boost Thursday morning when the Rotary Club of Simi Sunrise donated eight boxfuls of toys.

Rotary members Richard Kunz and Paul Miller helped hand toy cars, dolls and stuffed dogs to Marine Gunnery Sgts. John Hendrix and Patricia Reyes at a county fire station in Simi Valley.

“We had three of our largest organizations this year drop out” from donating toys, said Hendrix as firefighters loaded armloads of toys into his van.

Companies that had donated skateboards, Power Ranger toys and teddy bears in the past did not do so this year, Hendrix said.

The Rotary donation means “a lot” to the Toys for Tots Crusade, which distributes the toys as Christmas gifts to needy children through social service organizations in the counties of Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, he said.

The corps must meet requests for 47,000 children, and despite a Camarillo corporation’s promise to donate 50,000 small stuffed toys, the corps has so far collected only 26,000 assorted toys from other sources, he said.

Miller, a city councilman, said the club was glad to help. “We put the arm on Mattel,” he joked, referring to the company that employs one club member’s husband, who obtained the toys.