‘This is Christmas’: Toys for Tots spans generations

It took Matthew Hemming a few years to understand why someone knocked on the door on Christmas Day to give him a Power Ranger action figure and his younger brother a monster truck.

“I was one of these kids,” the Marine said, nodding to the short line of children at a Toys for Tots distribution on Saturday afternoon at the VFW Post in Caseyville. His mother worked two jobs, and the foundation delivered toys to his home several times. He says he helps with the program as often as he can, as does his brother who is also a Marine in Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, although time to do so is getting harder to find now that he has two young children of his own.

Volunteers with Toys for Tots didn’t just start in the predawn hours Saturday sorting toys for this weekend’s events, they’ve been at work since March getting ready, said Christie McKee, of Collinsville. The Devil Dogs Detachment started at 5:30 a.m. with sorting, and was at the post through 3 p.m. Saturday, McKee said. The volunteers at Caseyville will be back on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; that post serves a larger area that includes Belleville.

McKee said the VFW Post in O’Fallon would distribute about 400 toys to families on Saturday. She’s been involved with Toys for Tots for four years. “When my own children were old enough and moved out of the house, I needed something to do,” she said. She says the work keeps her “grounded and humble” helping “every kind of family.”

At O’Fallon, volunteers arrived early Saturday to sort toys according to each family’s need. Families apply to the program, so the workers at the VFW Post were working from a paper that contained each child’s age and gender. At O’Fallon, each child would get a bag containing three age-appropriate toys and a stuffed animal, and the family would get a board game and a stocking filled with trinkets and small toys. Santa was there, too, to visit with and distract children as their parents received the opaque bags of gifts.

“The idea is to supplement Christmas,” McKee said.

Several of the families stopping at the Caseyville Post were using the Toys for Tots as a supplement.

Shawna Tiller, of Belleville, said her daughter told her about the application and process. She was at the Caseyville VFW Post to supplement gifts to two of her five children, ranging in age from 2 to 21. Two of the kids, Charlie, 11, and Johnbrown, 14, were there with her.

“She works hard,” Johnbrown said of his mother, saying she works at Church’s Chicken.

“(Charlie’s) pretty good, he’s pretty good in school too,” she said when he was too quiet to answer. “He can spell anything.”

Six-year-old Nayelim Matias-Castro, a Collinsville kindergartner with two front teeth missing, knew why she and her family were at the VFW Post: “Because I want toys.”

The coordinator there, Ray Adams, operated the distribution a bit differently. Caseyville didn’t have Santa, but did have Marines including Hemming to help walk the bags to vehicles.

“I tell everybody that if you can keep the kids away it’s better — this is Christmas,” he said.

Caseyville accepted donations of toys but hadn’t had the fundraising efforts this year due to his own health problems, Adams said. Children age 3 to 9 would get six toys; children aged 8 to 12 would get four.

“When people buy, they don’t buy for babies,” he said. Infants and toddlers to 2 years old would get two toys each.

Jennifer Gilmer, of Belleville, was there with two of her children, Gregory, 4, who is starting to write his name left-handed, and Ciara, 10, who goes to Belle Valley and is reading “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.”

“This is Christmas,” said the mother of four. It’s her first year at Toys for Tots, saying that she heard about how to apply to the program from a caseworker.

Retired Marine Wade Rivali, who lives in South County, volunteered to assist the program for the second year on Saturday. He said a platoon friend at the Caseyville Post requested help of “Marines who can still fit into their uniforms.”

Marine Joel Billingsley, a father of four, said Toys for Tots is special to the Corps.

“Being a parent, it’s kind of hard to think of not being able to have something,” for children at Christmas.

This story was originally published December 12, 2015 at 5:10 PM with the headline "‘This is Christmas’: Toys for Tots spans generations."