Season Of Giving

Photo by Halima Fasasi

Photo by Halima Fasasi

If you walk around inside 5001 Marsha Sharp Freeway, one of the first things you would see is the Toys For Tots donation box next to a Christmas tree.

Exploring around the location, you will also see boxes filled to the brim with new toys for underprivileged children. Many of these boxes contain signs with age range and gender, making it easy to sort out the donated toys.

According to its official website, Toys For Tots started in 1947, and since then, the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve has distributed more than 351 million toys to 166 million children.

Sgt. Adam Dominguez, who has been in the U.S. Marine Corps for nine years, is the coordinator for Toys for Tots in Lubbock for the first time this year.

“I remember when I first got here,” Dominguez said, “I requested, actually, to be Toys For Tots coordinator because it’s a very big responsibility, and that’s pretty much it.”

Dominguez said the organization receives at least 50 toys per week.

“So, we get about 50 toys,” Dominguez said, “a little bit more, um, depending on the sponsor or who’s contributing.”

Dominguez said the most common toys are donated to toddlers.

“In my opinion,” Dominguez said. “it’s just because maybe toddlers are a little bit easier to shop for. As you get a little bit older, for instance, sometimes we see that we struggle with girls who are older, like from twelve to fourteen. Yeah, so we have a little bit of trouble finding toys for them.”

Dominguez said the organization will be at this location and will be taking contributions and doing events around Lubbock.

Photo By Halima Fasasi

Photo By Halima Fasasi

“There’s various establishments that have contacted me,” Dominguez said, “different sponsors that requested a marine presence because they like to show that, you know, the marines are there to promote Toys for Tots and, you know, they want to show that ‘hey, they want to try to get people in to bring newly non-wrapped toys to help the less fortunate children’.”

Danyelle Trewin, event coordinator for Walker Communications, said the company is holding an event to raise money and awareness for Toys For Tots.

“I work for Walker Broadcasting and Communications, and one of our workers was supposedly with Toys for Tots every year and came up with the idea to do a charity event called Casino Night benefitting Toys For Tots, and we’re putting on a charity event for Toys for Tots to bring more awareness to the campaign and also raise the money for them.”

Trewin said guests can contribute to Toys For Tots as well.

“We’re encouraging new, unwrapped toys. People can bring as many as they want. For each toy they bring they can get an additional 100 chips per toy.”

Trewin said other businesses and companies donated a range of prizes for Casino Night Benefitting Toys For Tots.

Despite the theme being casino night, Trewin said that people are not going to gamble with actual money.

“They can gamble in order to win prizes,” Trewin said.

Trewin said people who want to buy tickets can go to roadhousetickets.com.

Family Powersports of Lubbock, KLBK and KAMC TV are co-hosting Casino Night. The event takes place on November 22 at 7:30 p.m. The event will take place at AT&T Jones Stadium West club level.

Check out the website for more information on how you can donate to Toys For Tots.

About Halima Fasasi

I am a Journalism student from Arlington, Texas. Currently, I'm in my junior year at Texas Tech University. I'm an apprenticeship with The Hub for the fall semester. I am interested in creating a multimedia angle for the website.