This holiday season, the Marine Corps Reserve partnered with the Santa Barbara County non-profit CommUnify to help collect toys for children and families as part of the Toys for Tots program.
More than 700 families will be the recipients of the 2,600 toys collected this holiday season. Toys were donated at the Rancho Bowl Bowling Tournament on Sunday, the Elks Motorcycle Run back in November, and at drop-off locations at city and county fire stations as part of the Season of Hope.
On Monday morning, volunteers gathered to sort the donations.
"It's awesome this year," said Ralph Ybarra, CommUnify Children Services Program Manager. "This is the most volunteers we've had and the toys getting separated — it's wonderful to see that we've had so many donations this year."
After toys were collected by CommUnify, volunteers from the Air Force joined CommUnify members in helping to separate the toys by type. Those toys will then be individually bagged for distribution this Friday.
Although the area coordinator for Toys for Tots says COVID-19 caused donations and volunteer numbers to dwindle, CommUnify says they had more collections and volunteers this year compared to last year.
