Toys for Tots volunteers prepping for 2023 campaign

Edie Schmierbach, The Free Press, Mankato, Minn.
Updated ·2 min read

Nov. 14—When Toys for Tots coordinator Pamela Hammock hit the road Tuesday morning, her SUV was full of large, flattened boxes. Along the way, she picked up Sheila Busch to help distribute posters promoting the 2023 campaign to ensure all children in her region have presents to open this holiday season.

"We've got 97 drop sites ... so far, we've been to 10," Busch said, while standing on a North Mankato street in front of one of the participating businesses that's collecting donations.

Toys For Tots is a U.S. Marine Corps Reserve mission to collect new, unwrapped toys during November and December. The program celebrated its 75th year in 2022.

This is the 19th year the Marine Corps League has been part of the program, said Hammock, a Marine veteran who has served as a coordinator for several years.

Each Toys for Tots campaign is assigned an area. Hammock's is Blue Earth, Le Sueur, Waseca and Nicollet counties; and all the money and toy donations collected within an area stays in the area.

By the time Hammock and Busch headed home to Le Sueur Tuesday afternoon after their distribution mission was accomplished, they'd visited not only dozens of drop off sites in North Mankato and Mankato, they'd made sure Toys for Tots donation boxes will be available in Eagle Lake, Janesville, Kasota, Lake Crystal, Le Center, Le Sueur, Madison Lake, New Prague, Nicollet, St. Clair, St. Peter and Waseca.

Hammond will return to Mankato Saturday for a Toys for Tots kickoff event at Mills Fleet Farm, 1850 Premier Drive. She and other volunteers will be accepting donations between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. during the Stuff a Bus event, co-sponsored by Palmer Bus Service.

At the conclusion of this year's campaign, Hammock and Busch will be among the volunteers who will help picking up the donations — at 51 locations.

Hammock is grateful several of the businesses and organizations that sponsored drop-off sites also agreed to bring boxes of toys to Marine Corps League members.

"Thirteen-thousand toys were collected last year (in the region)," Hammond said.

A record amount of donations was collected nationally during last year's campaign: 24.4 million toys, books and games to 9.9 million children.