Toys For Tots Shortage Info

Just six days away, Toys For Tots is hoping for a Christmas miracle! The organization says it's having trouble collecting enough donated gifts.

Julie Chang was live at the TOYS-R-US in Times Square with more on what's causing the shortage, but if you would like to chip in and help some really, really underprivileged kids, check out these links:

http://www.toysfortots.org/ = TOYS FOR TOTS
http://www.cpsc.gov/ = U.S. CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION

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WATCH THE VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP

From Newsday.com: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/ny-litoys1215,0,2272904.story

Donations of toys still stalled

BY CARL MACGOWAN | carl.macgowan@newsday.com

December 15, 2007

The phone wasn't ringing, and Melissa Doktofsky was getting nervous.

Less than two weeks before Christmas, many shelves remained empty Friday at the 2,600-square-foot warehouse of Toys of Hope, Doktofsky's Huntington-based charity. Even news coverage of the toy shortage failed to jump-start donations, she said.

"We're not getting calls," she said at midday. "I'm really getting worried."

Amid a struggling economy and fears of lead-tainted toys imported from China, many Long Island charities are facing an unprecedented gift deficit.

Donations are dropping even as the need is growing, agency directors say.

"This year I really don't know what to do," Doktofsky said Friday. "Now I'm getting middle-class families, who normally would give us $50, who now need assistance.

"We service 50,000 children and we've received 6,000" toys, she said. "We're really in trouble."

The news was only slightly brighter Friday at the John Theissen Children's Foundation in Wantagh, where at least a dozen people promised donations, John Theissen said. A story in Friday's editions of Newsday seemed to make a difference, he said.

"People have definitely mentioned it," Theissen said. "People have said they're going to drop off toys or make a monetary donation."

Theissen said he remained hopeful he could keep up with demand.

"I'm certainly nervous," he said. "Agencies have called up that normally get stuff from us, and we tell them, 'Just give us a few more days.'"

At the Hispanic Brotherhood of Rockville Centre, executive director Margarita Grasing said it was "scary" how few donations the group has received.

"This Christmas has been very slow," she said. "We could be in a lot of trouble."

Like many such groups, Hispanic Brotherhood receives donations through larger organizations such as the Salvation Army. But an expected delivery of 200 packages from Toys for Tots, a U.S. Marine program, yielded gifts for only 50 children, Grasing said.

The Suffolk chapter of Toys for Tots had reported receiving only half the number of gifts they received last year. On Friday, the group picked up more than 3,500 toys donated by the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants.