Toys For Tots helping to give to those less fortunate

Willows police are getting into the holiday spirit this year with the public's help — collecting toys and canned goods for those less fortunate.

"It's definitely a big plus for the whole community," said Pat Millen, a volunteer police officer in Willows.

The police are part of two national campaigns: the Toys For Tots program and Cans to Cops, police Chief Bill Spears explained. And that is not all.

"We're also asking people decorating their homes with holiday lights to put up a single blue light in their window," Spears said. "It's to honor all emergency responders that have lost their lives helping others," he explained.

Project Blue Light was started in Philadelphia in 2005 after a woman decorated her home with blue Christmas lights to honor her son, a police officer killed in action that same year, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Organization.

"The color blue is a symbol of peace, and this holiday season we urge all Americans to remember our domestic peacekeepers — the men and women of law enforcement — by putting blue lights in your windows and trimming your tree and home in blue," Craig W. Floyd, chairman of the organization, said in a statement. "Blue lights during the holiday season are a visible reminder of the service and sacrifice that law enforcement officers make on behalf of all Americans 365 days a year."

"Those three programs - Cans to Cops, Toys for Tots and Project Blue Light - are not meant to compete with any other charitable drives going on, but only to enhance them," Spears said.

U. S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program is to collect new, unwrapped toys during each year, and distribute those toys as Christmas gifts to needy children in the community in which the campaign is conducted, Spears said.

Spears, a former Marine, said that over the 62 years of the U. S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program, Marines have distributed more than 400 million toys to more than 188 million needy children. Over its 18 year life span, the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation has supplemented local toy collections with more than 81.3 million toys valued at more than $487 million; plus has provided promotion and support materials valued at over $6.3 million.

Toys and cans will be collected until Dec. 22. Then taken over to Chico to be organized, then re-distributed back into their local communities, Spears said.

If you can't make it to one of the drop-off points, police will come to your home to pick them up, Spears said.

For more information about the programs, contact Willows police at 934-3456.

Contact Rob Parsons at 934-6800 or rparsons@tcnpress.com.

DONATIONS

If you desire to donate you may do so by:

1.  Calling the police department at 934-3456 and staff will pick the
cans up from you, or

2.  You can drop them your cans at the Willows Police Station in City
Hall, 201 N. Lassen, during normal business hours.  

ALL FOOD COLLECTED WILL BE GIVEN TO THE GLENN COUNTY FOOD
BANK.

To donate at new toy, with at least a $15 value, Toys for Tots drop boxes will be at the following locations:
The Last Stand, 414 N. Tehama Street, Willows    
Denny’s, 343 N. Humboldt, Willows
Sanifoods, 517 S. Tehama, Willows Hardware, 145 N. Butte St. Willows Police Department, 201 N. Lassen, Willows