The Clyde VFW was honor last Wednesday evening by the Marine Corps League Detachment 279, out of Fremont for its involvement with Toys for Tots this past holiday season.
The VFW was awarded an honorary plaque from the Marines by Commandant Glenn Baker and Chaplain Will Miller at VFW Post 3343.
“We’re here to present the Clyde VFW with a plaque to honor work during the Toys for Tots campaign,” Baker said. “This was their first year working with us, so we were hoping to get one full box of toys from them. Two days in, they called me and said they had two boxes of toys already. Three or four days later they had two more boxes. In all they ended up donating six boxes of toys to us.
“We’re here to recognize that they did that well in their first year.”
According to VFW Post 3343 Commander Jake Allison, getting involved with Toys for Tots was a no-brainer.
“They sent us a correspondence last year asking if we’d like to get involved,” Allison said. “We asked everyone here at the post, and they were all behind getting involved. It wasn’t that we hadn’t wanted to be involved in years past, it just hadn’t come up before.”
Being able to respond with so much support from those in the Clyde community gives the post a sense of pride, according to Allison.
“It is, especially when you think of who the organization does this for,” he said. “There are a lot of under-privileged kids who benefit from Toys for Tots. The VFW is a veteran-oriented organization, but we also look out for our community.”
The VFW Auxiliary also played a key part in the donations to Toys for Tots.
“It was outstanding to know that there was a need and it was something that we could come together as a group and accomplish something like that,” auxiliary president Karen Nims said. “If there’s a need out there, and they let us know, it seems like our post and auxiliary stand right up for it.”
Ron Druckenmiller oversaw the Clyde VFW post’s campaign to collect toys for Toys for Tots. He said he wasn’t surprised that the post and auxiliary supported the efforts, but admitted he was surprised by just how much support was shown.
“I told the post that we were going to help with the Toys for Tots program and would have a box here,” Druckenmiller said. “Naturally, everyone jumped behind the effort. Everyone here was in the service, so they know how to just jump on board and get it done. We knew we’d fill that box. We didn’t know we were going to fill it six times, but that was the fun part.”
The Marine Corps detachment out of Fremont awarded just four plaques to organizations that helped with last year’s campaign. Baker said the plaques were something special to honor those groups that went above and beyond, and the money used for the plaques came out of their own pockets, rather than from donations made to the Toys for Tots campaign.
In addition to the Clyde VFW, Whirlpool also received one of the plaques for their efforts.
While being honored was nice, Druckenmiller said that wasn’t why the VFW got involved.
“I was surprised when I heard we were getting a plaque,” Druckenmiller said. “We weren’t doing it for recognition; we were doing it to help the kids out.”
Plans are already underway to try to collect even more toys for this year’s campaign, according to Druckenmiller.
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