Surrounded by boxes that would usually be full of toys, volunteer Kamela Ryan packs up a bear at the Toy for Tots warehouse in Tampa. This year's postal drive in Hillsborough and Pinellas collected 14,000 toys, down from 55,000 last year.
Posted on 12/13/2012 9:39:05 AM PST by Brandonmark
Thousands of area children might go without toys this holiday season thanks to a Grinch-like move from the Postal Service.
Normally this time of year, boxes of gifts pack the Toys for Tots warehouses. But not this season. Toy donations are so low, Toys for Tots officials worry they won't have enough gifts for the estimated 40,000 boys and girls on their lists.
'I'm losing sleep,' said Herb Donica, chairman of the committee that supports the Toys for Tots campaign in Hillsborough County. 'All of our core people are pulling their hair out wondering what we are going to do.'' The post office may have saved the day inA Miracle on 34th Street , but Donica says it crippled this year's Toys for Tots campaigns.
Every year, the charity partners with the Postal Service for a Letter Carriers Toy Drive in early December. Residents leave toys at their mailboxes, and letter carriers collect them.
To promote the event, the post office has delivered for free a flier with the details. For years, about 2 million have been mailed to households in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco, each with their own Toys for Tots campaigns run by the U.S. Marines Corps, reservists and civilian supporters.
About a month before this year's drive, charity officials got word that the Postal Service would no longer distribute the flier. Local postal officials had been using a permit for official Postal Service business to deliverthe flier without postage. But this year, in light of the postal service's financial problems, officials wouldn't allow it.
The change sent Toys For Tots scrambling. They took out a few ads, including inThe Flyer, the advertising mailer that in recent years printed the toy drive fliers for free. But the efforts weren't enough.
(Excerpt) Read more at tbteedition.tampabay.com ...
On the other hand, they had tens of millions to sponsor Lance Armstrong and NASCAR.
SantaBomba will provide.
So, once again, it’s the gubmit that supposed to give a freebie, eh?
With all due respect to a great charity, try looking into what other folks are doing to get toys for tots. They’re NOT using the gubmit (which is doomed anyway) and are doing fine.
Don’t rely on uncle - he’s dying and will be resuscitated in a better form after CW-II.
From the bottom of my heart, I hope that every child is happy on Christmas morning.
However, I cannot understand why ANY child would NOT receive at least a modest gift from parents or guardians.
A goodly portion of our incomes are being confiscated by the US, state, and local tax collectors, of which the major portion goes to fund direct payments to people who are poor, unemployed, disabled, or elderly. My town is awash with charities also collecting to give food and clothing to those same people. Our school systems are providing meals and snacks 3 to 5 times a day to most, if not all, of these same groups. PEOPLE, WHERE IS THE MONEY GOING?
iPods, cell phones, dope, booze, hoodies, more dope, McFries...
I was surprised when I went to the P.O. to mail Christmas gifts to an APO. I had my customs forms all filled out but was told the PO no longer accepted those and the clerk typed and printed out the same information and a cost to me of $1.49. I asked how long that had been enforced and was told a little over 2 months. But I mail a small package to my grand-daughter every month and have not met with this situation prior to this.
I don’t mind tho. Making out the forms (you can only list 4 items per form and have to use multiple forms, each with several carbons for additional items)Is a hassle and I am somewhat visually impaired.
I wonder if in addition to ceasing free delivery for the Toys for Tots program, if they will also suspend the Golden Harvest collection whereby they leave a notice about the collection and you leave a sack of groceries for them to pick up.
What poor children need more than anything is better parents; if they had them, very few would go without most of their needs and quite a few wants fulfilled. Unfortunately, that’s not something any charity can provide.
You sure have that right!
Last year our group gave 180 toys and over $700.00 cash.
A most worthy cause.
“SantaBomba will provide.”
That is exactly what I told a marketer yesterday who called wanting a donation to the Empty Stocking Fund. I let her say her entire spiel, then I told her that the reelection of obama has ensured that I am too taxed to have money left for charitable donations. Buh bye. Click.
Elections have consequences.
And that is my reply to anyone who always wants me to do charitable events like Toys for Tots. Plus when you see it on the news here it is ALWAYS melanin enhanced individuals who are on the receiving end. They get enough of my money.
Just these things, especially the second item, would result in non-neediness for a hugh swath of today's "poor." As Theodore Dalrymple said, the problem of the underclass is not "poverty," in the sense of a lack of money and stuff: the problem is moral, personal, and community squalor.
Maybe the people who normally give have finally figured out that the parents of these children are often better off than the people giving the gifts and can buy their own children's Christmas gifts out of those big government checks from uncle Obama.
That was a decade ago. This is now. Sorry ~ the last Republican Senate came up with a bill to bankrupt the USPS ~ it’s still in effect. Postal workers yet unborn may collect on the deal 75 years from now ~ to get their government sponsored health insurance plan paid for out of a special fund no one knows about ~ ‘cause they just take that $5 billion a year and spend it on GSA parties.
There are always kids who fall through the cracks and get missed by the large charities. And it’s not a kid’s fauilt if the parents are crackheads or alcoholics.
I’m never too comfortable telling this story for fear of people thinking I’m boasting. Believe me, that is not the case. Every year my wife and I buy some toys and a few days before Christmas we get in the car and let God decide where to take them. It works everytime. Here’s one example. Two years ago were drove past a country church. I went in and asked the preacher if he knew of anyone who needed some toys. He explained that a member of his church had just lost his job and had moved back to the area. The man had just called the preacher asking him if he knew where he could pick up a few toys for his 9 year old daughter. Believe me, she had a wonderful Christmas!
And I won’t even go into what we call “The Crockett, Texas Miracle”. Let’s just say we’re sure we went where God wanted us to go.
I started doing this because I grew up hating Christmas because my childhood Christmases were not merry. Seldom was there anything under the tree. If we had a tree. I figured if I could stop one little boy from hating Christmas, it would be worth it. Well, I don’t know about the little boys who got our toys over the past 16 years, but this “little boy” sure doesn’t hate Christmas anymore.
The other day, I was in a store where they had a Toys for Tots collection box. About all I could find in their toy department was imported junk from China and other countries. - Most of that stuff won’t last until the water gets hot; and it’s depressing to me to spend my money on it. - I gotta find a better way. :o(
Lets first define “tots” shall we. As previously stated what these children need more then some free hand out is a complete set of parents. TFT is nothing more then another give away program for the parasites of society. Hunger and want are great motivators.
I know what you mean. There have been several times in my life that we could have qualified for free lunches, food stamps...whatever. As long as we weren’t actually starving I never would have thought of it.
My kids wore fake name-brand clothing that I made for them, sometimes I even asked others for their old tags from things and sewed them in. Christmas was always great, I made sure it was and my children didn’t even have a clue that times were tough.
One time my son heard my husband and I talking very seriously about money and came to me later and asked if we were poor. I told him “Heck, no, we’re just broke.” I explained to him the difference, our position was just temporary and we were working hard to fix it, poor is when you see no way out or seek no way out.
Poor is when you constantly have your hand out expecting someone to fill it. Poor is when someone else buys your children Christmas presents. Poor is when you expect the government to support you. And finally, poor is when seek nothing better for yourself or you children.
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