MARYSVILLE — Christina Heisley waited in line outside the Dunn Lumber building on the first day of the Operation Marysville Community Christmas Toy Drive.
When the store opened at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday she was one of the first to begin shopping for her four young children.
“This has been great,” Heisley said. “It’s organized. It’s not this mad rush of people trying to get the better toys.”
Operation Marysville Community Christmas was started in 1985 by area volunteers to help needy families during the holidays. Volunteers work with the Marysville Community Food Bank to register Marysville families so they can shop at the OMCC toy store.
This year, 1,300 children were registered, volunteer Bonnie Ramsey said. The toy store is open four days at the Dunn Lumber building at 1105 State Ave.
The number of children is slightly lower than last year’s total but a decline in toy donations is still a concern, Ramsey said.
“We’re really tight on the toys this year, it’s going to be borderline,” she said. “Many organizations concentrated on giving to the food bank, so that’s affected us this year.”
Toys were donated through Friday and are split up throughout the days the toy store is open. Those who registered were organized alphabetically by last name and told to come on a specific day.
Volunteers including Sue Kendall pushed carts around boxes and tables of coats and toys, helping shoppers pick out toys for their children on Thursday.
“We talk with them and see what they need and let them take their time shopping,” Kendall said.
Each shopper is allowed to pick out a certain amount of items per child and was asked at registration to only shop through one toy drive this year, because of the demand, Ramsey said.
“We have to be very strict and especially ask people this year to only shop at one gift store because there just isn’t enough,” she said.
Heisley works in retail and said she sees parents trying to get discounts on their holiday shopping on a daily basis. The main thing, she said, is making sure her children have something to play with on Christmas day.
“Everybody is trying to do whatever they can and make do with what they’ve got,” Heisley said. “For me, it’s just that they have something there to play with. For my kids it’s still about the surprise and Santa. It’s still very much about the thrill of the tree and the lights.”
Getting enough toy donations to fulfill the demand is always one difficulty for OMCC, but the biggest challenge every year is securing a place to hold the toy store, according to Kendall.
“Next year who knows where we’ll be,” she said. “We never know from year to year. We start trying to locate a building as soon as we can.”
Twenty city employees volunteered their time to shop for toys the morning of Dec. 15, said Patricia Duemmell, who works for the Marysville Police Department. She has volunteered at the toy store for the past 14 years and said she enjoys carrying on the legacy of former deputy city clerk Lillie Lein, who originally used her two weeks of vacation to start OMCC.
“We really admire her so we want to keep this going,” Duemmell said.
Lein died in July 2007. A bench and dogwood tree were donated in her honor and will be dedicated at 11 a.m. today outside the Marysville Community Food Bank at 4150 88th St. NE, Marysville.
Amy Daybert: 425-339-3491, adaybert@heraldnet.com.
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