A Bumper Year for Toys for Tots

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By Bill Slocum & Cheye Roberson
Contributing Editor & Reporter

Anneliese Ashley (12) of Greenwich helps out with Toys for Tots at the Cos Cob Firehouse. Photo by John Ferris Robben.
Anneliese Ashley (12) of Greenwich helps out with Toys for Tots at the Cos Cob Firehouse. Photo by John Ferris Robben.

Toys For Tots enjoyed its biggest Christmas ever in Greenwich this year, as residents came together in two separate locations December 12 to drop off record amounts of presents and money.

Jack Kriskey, a local remodeling contractor who helped bring Toys for Tots to town in December 2001, says some 2,500 toys for needy children were collected at the Cos Cob Fire Station and the Banksville Community Center.

“This was our best year ever, hands down,” he said.

Toys for Tots began in 1947 as an outreach effort by a group of U. S. Marines in Los Angeles to collect toys for parents unable to afford them for their children that Christmas. The following year it became a nationwide program organized by the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, which oversees the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation today.

Members of the Marine Reserve manage the collection and transport of toy donations nationwide. Local volunteer organizations like those in Cos Cob and Banksville play a vital role, too, both in spreading the word and gathering toys.

Greenwich took up the cause after the 9/11 attacks, Kriskey recalled; Toys For Tots found itself struggling to find donors during a rough season for charities.

“They put out the notice that year that they were short on toys, and we put on a drive at our local community house in Banksville,” Kriskey said. “In 15 years we have worked our way up from a pick-up truck to a seven-ton Marine truck.

“For ten years now, they have been bringing that truck to Greenwich. This year, for the first time, we filled it.”

Greenwich’s volunteer contingent consists of several longtime regulars. In Cos Cob, they include Kriskey; his wife, Ronnie Staplefield; and Kerrin Coyle, longtime partner of the late selectman David Theis. In Banksville, where it all began, the program is run by Joe Huley.

This year, the Greenwich campaign got a significant boost with the arrival of a new partner, the Silver Shield Association, the employee union of the Greenwich Police Department.

“Someone asked me, because I was a veteran of the Marine Corps, to see if I wanted to help out, and I did,” said Daniel Hendrie, a Greenwich police officer. “We put up posters. Tommy Keegan, who is a retired lieutenant with us, also still works with the Silver Shield—that’s our union. He goes around and he does most of the legwork, pretty much.

“We will put posters all over where we can in town, and I guess surrounding places like Port Chester, Stamford, to get the word out to more people.”

Online promotion was key as well, Hendrie added. “I think social media has also put it out there.”

Over the course of the day, three once-empty fold-out tables outside the firehouse became crowded with gifts meant for children otherwise unlikely to receive Christmas presents this year.

“People are usually really good with this,” said Hendrie of people who showed up to donate.

In addition to the 2,500 toys, Greenwich also collected $2,500 in checks. “The toys are impressive to look at when they sit on the tables, but cash gives them flexibility,” Kriskey said. “Gifts often tend to be things like Barbies and Tonka trucks. A lot of times, for older girls, older boys, meaningful gifts get more sparse. Cash helps fill those voids.”

The toys were transported to a collection center in Stamford. From there, the Toys for Tots Foundation match toys and cash gifts with families in need in the Greenwich-Stamford area, via non-profit charities and social-service agencies. “What charity we get stays in the area,” Staplefield noted.

Though he expects Silver Shield to play a big role in the program’s future in Greenwich, Kriskey says he will stay involved as long as he can: “There’s something special about the glow in kids’ faces when they show up to hand over the presents to the Marines. There’s something very heartwarming about it. It’s simple as that.”

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