Presents Lasting a Lifetime
He gave her perfume; she gave him a microscope.
But if not for a family friend and the Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots program, Allen Born and his mother might not have had gifts to exchange on that frosty Christmas Day in Michigan 16 years ago.
Presents were hard to come by because his mother struggled with substance abuse, explained Born, 25, now a sergeant who directs the annual Toys for Tots drive in Orange County.
“I’d be lying if I said I joined the Marines because of what happened on that special day,” said Born, who is stationed at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. “But when I learned the unit I was assigned to was in charge of Toys for Tots, I realized I’d been given a chance to give back to a program that gave to me.”
Born was among the hundreds of guests who attended the opening-night preview party last week for the Festival of Trees at South Coast Plaza Crystal Court, a benefit sponsored by the 552 Club of Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach.
The event, founded in 1995, marked the first time that Toys for Tots--along with the Salvation Army and the Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County--was invited to participate in the five-day festival that showcases and sells more than 70 designer trees.
During Thursday’s festivities, the Marine Corps public affairs officer presided over a booth where visitors were asked to donate new, unwrapped items for children ages 10 to 18.
Born’s goal for this holiday season: collecting 200,000 toys. “We serve about 240 nonprofit agencies in Orange County each year,” he explained.
While toys are needed for newborns on up, the focus of this year’s drive is gifts for teenage girls.
“We get lots of toys for tots and and older boys,” Born said. “But people don’t seem to know what to get for older girls.”
His suggestions: makeup and grooming kits, Walkman radios, porcelain dolls, diaries, costume jewelry, cameras, film.
Last year, the local Toys for Tots drive was 7,000 toys short on Christmas Day, Born said.
“We didn’t get the word out in time. The toys eventually came in; the drive doesn’t shut down until the end of January. But there were a whole lot of kids who didn’t get their toys in time for Christmas--and that broke my heart.”
It was a family friend who stepped in that memorable Christmas season when Born was 9.
“He tried to get Mom help, but she wasn’t into getting help--so he turned his attention to me,” Born said. “He really loved me.”
The friend took 9-year-old Born shopping and helped him buy and wrap a bottle of fragrance for his mom. Days later, the friend took him to a community church, where they stood outside with a bunch of kids in a “long line,” Born remembers. “He didn’t tell me why we were there.”
Once they were inside the church hall, a “towering Marine suddenly knelt before me, handed me a present and said, ‘Merry Christmas, son.’ ”
Born had received a gift from Toys for Tots, a national program established by the Marine Corps in 1947 to distribute holiday gifts to economically disadvantaged children.
Born’s friend told him: “That gift is from your mother.”
Born recalls receiving his special gift from Toys for Tots three days before Christmas. At his friend’s suggestion, he placed it under the tree in a corner of his mother’s small apartment. “He told me to wait till Christmas to open it with my mom--just the two of us,” he said. “Those few days felt like a year.”
The gift was wrapped “all greenish and Christmasy,” Born recalls, “with ornaments on it and a big yellow bow. And it was tied with ribbon on all four sides--not just topped with a stuck-on bow.”
His mother beamed when she saw her boy open his gift, a microscope.
“I loved it,” Born said. “And for the longest time, I swore I’d become a scientist.”
Information:
* Toys for Tots: (949) 653-9680.
* Salvation Army (where you can adopt a family for Christmas): (714) 505-3676.
* Second Harvest Food Bank (for canned and nonperishable food donations): (714) 771-1343.
