By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
The 24th annual Christmas for Kids Toy Drive, hosted by JoeTown 107.5's Gregg Lynn, is in full swing.
The first toy drive was in 2001, and Lynn says despite a near recession, a pandemic, and then rising costs on products, the St. Joseph community has continued to provide for kids in need
"I mean it's been thousands of kids over the last 2o some years, thousands of gifts, tens of thousands of dollars in donations to help these organizations too," Lynn tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "So we're pretty proud of the fact that we're able to keep doing it, and we're really grateful for the St. Joe community that they've been able to help us out all these years."
Currently, people are gathering toys on wishlists for kids, which Lynn says so far, has been going pretty well
"We're down to about 15 or 20 kids to go on these lists, but there's still need, we've got to fill the toy room at Adopt-A-Family, so really people can donate any new, unwrapped toy," Lynn says. "Bring it out to the stuidos, I'll even give you a Shop St. Joe ticket you can make some money, and then all those toys will fill the toy room at Adopt-A-Family."
Available wish lists can be found on the Gregg Lynn Radio Show Facebook page.
While new and unwrapped toys are nice, Lynn says there are also other ways to help financially, with coin buckets out at several area businesses.
"If you don't want to buy a toy, or you're not in a position to buy a toy, or you can't take care of a whole kid, or you don't want to do just one thing, if you see one of these buckets out at Fastgas or one of these locations, drop a buck in, drop a couple quarters in, all that money adds up to $600, $800, $1,000 to buy more toys that we need for these organizations," Lynn explains.
Coin buckets will be out at several local businesses until November 24th. The toy drive runs through Black Friday, November 29th.
The finale of this year’s toy drive will be a live event from 5am to 5pm at the St. Joe Frontier Casino, right inside the front door.
You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.