The weekly Sunday Chicago Tribune Magazine runs a Flashback Page at the end. Nancy Watkins digs up an old photo and then describes what is going on and then comes up with some really interesting related facts.
On December 16th, the picture was from Dec. 2, 1955, and showed Rudy Longhi repairing toys collected by Marine Sgt Herb Freeman at a gas station in Chicago at Ohio and LaSalle streets. As a Marine in WWII, Longhi had been blinded by a Japanese grenade. Having trouble finding a job, he filled his days repairing toys for the US Marine Corps' Toys for Tots campaign.
FACTS:
1980-- year Toys for Tots stopped accepting used toys.
5000-- number of toys collected the first year
1947-- the first year of Toys for Tots.
19.2 million-- toys collected in 2006.
Walt Disney-- Designer of Toys for Tots logo that is still used.
I attended a kickoff breakfast for the Toys for Tots campaign this past Nov. 10th, the anniversary of the founding of the Marine Corps in 1775.
Toys for Tots is run by the US Marine Corps Reserve and was started in 1947 by Major Bill Hendricks. It was a local effort the first year, but went national the next.
A Great Cause. --Old Coot
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