Okinawa well short of goal for toy drive

[unhappycamper]

Okinawa well short of goal for toy drive
By Cindy Fisher, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Friday, December 21, 2007

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — The Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots program on Okinawa remains well short of its goal to have 10,000 goal toys to distribute by Christmas Eve, Marine officials say.

During Saturday’s Ho Ho Express push, volunteers went base to base by bus and collected about 1,400 toys, bringing the total this year to about 6,400 toys, officials said.

That’s far below expectations, said Staff Sgt. Suzette Smith, a reserve Marine from Atlanta who is on Okinawa to help run the program.

In past years, the Ho Ho Express run — the last major event held by Toys for Tots — had doubled the number of toys collected up to that point, Smith said.

To date, Toys for Tots on Okinawa has collected about 6,400 toys, said Gunnery Sgt. Charles Albrecht, a Marine Corps Base Camp Butler spokesman.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=51152