Saluting the Colonel Behind Toys for Tots

It started with a homemade rag doll. Diane Hendricks made it in 1947 and asked her husband to give it to charity.

But William Hendricks, then a major in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, couldn’t find a charity that gave Christmas gifts to needy children, and so he started his own, running it from his office in the publicity department of Warner Bros. Studios.

It was the birth of Toys for Tots, the national effort by the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves to collect toys for poor children. About 4 million children a year now receive the gifts, collected from gas stations, malls and offices all over the country.

On Wednesday, Col. Hendricks, who died in 1992, was posthumously awarded a U.S. Department of the Navy Meritorious Public Service Medal for his role in founding and expanding the program, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

The Hendricks, who ran the program for several decades, used their Hollywood connections to recruit John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, President Ronald Reagan, Doris Day, Ann-Margret and others as spokespersons. He even tapped Walt Disney, who designed one of the program’s early posters.

“No one working at Warner Bros. was safe from those phone calls from Bill,” said his former secretary Dee Somers, now director of studio services. “He’d phone and say, ‘Would you make an appearance for Toys for Tots, would you make a statement, would you go to a dinner for the program?’ . . . Everyone got called. And everyone responded.”

William Hendricks, who left home at 16, rose from theater usher in Shreveport, La., to West Coast public relations director for Warner Bros., said niece Robben Williams, who accepted the medal for him in an afternoon ceremony on the studio lot. It was a perfect gig for starting a charity.

The cause was good publicity for the stars, and the studio. But Toys for Tots was also a personal crusade, Somers said.

The Hendricks wanted children but did not have any of their own. Toys for Tots helped “fill the gap,” Somers said.

It was also a way to channel Diane Hendricks’ considerable energy. A former dancer and artists’ model, she married William Hendricks when she was 16 and was his unofficial partner in everything he did--even going so far as to make sandwiches and popcorn in the movie theaters he managed, Somers said. Diane Hendricks died nine years ago.

The couple were famous party-givers and involved in many charities. But none caught on like Toys for Tots. Somers said Hendricks was “shocked and overwhelmed” by how big the Toys for Tots program had become after two decades. “But then the publicist in him would kick in and he’d say, ‘we need to make it bigger, get more stars!’ ” she said.

Rank and file U.S. Marine Corps reservists remain the backbone of the program. Soldiers bring boxes to local businesses, then collect, sort and distribute the donated toys to charities, which take them to needy families.

Toys for Tots has distributed 220 million toys since its inception, according to retired U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Matthew T. Cooper, who heads the Toys for Tots Foundation.

Hendricks strove to keep the program personal, and shunned cash donations, Somers said. But today, the foundation, formed in 1991 to tap corporate donors, takes in $3 million to $4 million per year in donations and supplies about one-quarter of all the toys the program hands out, Cooper said.

Rarely now do the reservists hand out the toys themselves. But when they do “it’s fun,” said Cpl. Ephriam Walters, who is working on this year’s campaign at the El Toro Marine Corps base. “There is something about giving a kid a toy that doesn’t have one, because you know you wanted them yourself when you were a kid.”