Toys for Tots ready to make holiday bright for 5,000 kids in McHenry County; there’s still time to help

McHenry County residents have been generous over the past 15 years, ensuring the Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots toy drive has presents to give to families in need each year, county coordinator Daniel Bouček said.

Still, there often are gaps in the presents collected, with few for babies and toddlers through age 2, and another gap for children ages 10 and older.

“It really impacts us” in McHenry County, as well as across the nation, not to have toys for those children, Bouček said.

Still, he expects the Monday after Thanksgiving to be one of the biggest days for donors to leave gifts in one of the 100 drop-off locations in the county. New, unwrapped toys can be donated through Dec. 11, although the Crystal Lake Police Department, the Fox River Grove Fire Protection District and the Woodstock Police Department will accept later donations.

“On Tuesday, we will have a good feel for where we are on our need for toys,” Bouček said.

“On Tuesday, we will have a good feel for where we are on our need for toys.”

—  Daniel Bouček, McHenry County Marine Corps Toys for Tots coordinator

For anyone who has not bought presents but would like to donate to the toy drive, Bouček suggested those donors may contribute through the website, which also highlights other ways to help out.

It is hard for the collection sites to tell patrons buying for Toys for Tots that what they really want is toys for teenagers and babies, he said. “They drop what they brought in, and that is the way it is.”

Donated toys are distributed to nonprofit groups whose clients registered the number of children and their wish lists with Santa weeks ago. Still, parents who are finding themselves in need of help to cover the cost of presents can register with the McHenry Rotary Club’s Secret Santa, through noon Dec. 6 via its website, sunrisesecretsanta.com. That program offers toys for children up to age 12 but is unable to grant specific requests, according to the website.

Many of the local Toys for Tots requests come through McHenry County food pantries, social service organizations, churches and schools, Bouček said.

“They provide us with what they need and we fill those orders,” he added. Last year, the effort resulted in at least 20,700 donated toys, distributed to 5,700 children.

Some of the organizations Toys for Tots works with already have picked up the toys for this year and are sorting and storing them for the families in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

“We have already given out toys for 850 kids” this season, Bouček said.

On average, each registered child gets three presents to unwrap. Bouček, and the groups that receive presents for distribution, keep meticulous records to ensure as many families as needed can get help, with no duplication. He also keeps an eye out for fake Toys for Tots collection boxes, which have turned up in the past.

A semiretired former federal agent who does security work on the side with top-secret clearance, Bouček said he’s “quickly taken care of it” when someone has tried to scam the program.

Bouček encourages those cash donations this late in the year.

“We know what our shortage is, and with cash we can do something about it right away,” he said.

Bouček usually would go out and do the toy shopping himself, but his wife “wants to be the drill sergeant” and make him either ride in an automated cart or stay at home. He was released from the hospital Sunday after going to the ER with leg pain Thanksgiving morning. Blood clots were found in his leg, Bouček said, and the doctors told him to rest for at least the next three days.

He also shared his appreciation to the businesses, scouting organizations and individual donors who have helped this year, and in years past.

“It is all of us who are doing it. All of us,” Bouček said. “I just oversee it. But I might have to slow down for a few days.”