Salvation Army appeals for more toys

The Salvation Army is appealing to the community to donate more toys after a longer-than-expected list of recipients and slower-than-usual toy contributions conspired to make the charitable organization fail to meet its target toy donations this year.

“We’re very concerned about the toy drive. The list of kids that we got this year has more than tripled from last year so the need is great. The toys and contributions coming in are also a little bit slower than most years. The Rotary Club of Saipan has given us a lot of support and we have some individual businesses in the community that are helping out,” said Salvation Army ministry leader Wayne Gillespie.

To this end, he is encouraging businesses, governmental agencies, and schools to consider holding toy drives.

“For the last three days we have been doing the logistical work of wrapping the gifts and at this point we don’t even have yet a toy for each kid. We target at least two toys and we hope to meet that goal this year but at this point it’s just not happening.”

Gillespie said the Salvation Army has more than 80 recipients from the Division of Youth Services. As of now, he doesn’t have a running total of the toys they’ve received so far.

Apart from toy donations, the local chapter of the Salvation Army is also accepting cash donations.

“We’ve got a few toys trickling in and we got some cash donations from the Rotary Club of Saipan, which is a tremendous help. Actually cash donations and monetary donations help us out because every year you find yourself short of toys for certain age ranges. This year we’re critically short of toys for older kids. When someone makes a monetary donation it enables us to purchase the gifts to fill the gap.”

For more information and to donate toys and cash donations to the Salvation Army, call Gillespie at 483-0885. “We want to get those donations. Please give us a call. Our deadline is Friday.”

In related news, Gillespie said the Salvation Army added an additional day to its soup kitchen this December.

“We’ve been concerned with kids out of school on Christmas break and that they may be missing meals. What we’ve done is we partnered with Saipan Community Church and they’ve been coming out and running the soup kitchen each Wednesday for the month of December.”

Apart from the Wednesday schedule for December, the Salvation Army’s soup kitchen is open three days a week—Fridays and Saturdays from 11am to 1pm and Sunday afternoons from 1:30pm.

“If you’re a low-income family and you find yourself short on cash and food, please come on out and eat,” said Gillespie.