MARQUETTE — Frigid 20-degree temperatures across the Upper Peninsula on Monday afternoon didn’t stop a group of volunteers from delivering some holiday cheer.

The Marine Toys for Tots program dropped by the Westwood Mall with a trailer full of toys from donation sites around Marquette County. The toys will be distributed to registered families in need later this week through the Salvation Army’s Christmas Toy Shop via a contactless, curbside pickup method.

Toys for Tots is just one of many local organizations that contribute to the Toy Shop program each year. Others include The Mining Journal Cheer Club, the Walmart Angel Tree program and direct donations to the Salvation Army.

“We’ve faced more challenges than we have in years past,” Marquette County Toys for Tots coordinator Tracey Tippett said. “The need is greater out there. And we ran into the issues where some of the businesses couldn’t have our donation boxes, but the community stepped up and other businesses did as well.

“We’ve received donations of toys and monetary donations as well. We adopted, conquered and overcame all of the challenges and obstacles to do what we could do.”

Tippett says Salvation Army officials are still tabulating the numbers in regard to how many families and children have signed up for the program this year. However, officials expect the need will likely be higher this year due to the economic impact of COVID-19.

As far as toy donations go, Tippett said there are simply too many to count.

“Out there in the trailer, we had about $18,000 worth,” she said. “We’ve probably doubled that with what we’ve brought to the St. Vincent de Paul stores. We have oodles of toys, that’s all I can say.”

Toys for Tots distributed 5,320 toys to 1,349 children in need across Marquette County in 2019, according to its website.

Tippett emphasized that all toy donations and monetary donations stay local.

“All the donations that we receive, including monetary donations, they stay in Marquette County,” she said. “We shop in Marquette County. Toys for Tots alone, we spent over $10,000 shopping locally. It’s kind of a pay-it-forward thing.

“All of us doing this, we’re all volunteers. All the Toys for Tots campaigns in the U.P. are ran by Marine Corps League detachments and everybody runs their campaign differently. I’m very blessed and thankful that we get to gather the toys, and they figure out the distribution.”

The Marine Toys for Tots program was founded in Los Angeles in 1947 when U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Maj. Bill Hendricks and his wife were looking to donate a toy to a child in need, but had no organization to do it through.

The program collected over 5,000 toys for children in the Los Angeles area and expanded to a national campaign the following year. To date, Marine Toys for Tots has collected over 584 million toys, supporting 265 million children nationwide.

For more information on the Toys for Tots program, visit www.toysfortots.org.

Ryan Spitza can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 248. His email address is rspitza@miningjournal.net.