Toy Lift charity has heavy lifting this year

From the number of workers laid off each month to the number of foreclosures, it’s been a bad year to be a number.

With the addition of the number 3,468, it just got worse.

That’s the number of Central Virginia children at risk of a bad holiday this year and an increase of nearly 33 percent over the number of kids helped in 2008 by the Toy Lift, the area’s homegrown, hometown holiday charity.

Largest number ever

“That’s almost a thousand more kids than we served last year, and we thought last year was hard,” said Tom Powell, Toy Lift founder. “We have the largest number of children we’ve ever had to take care of this year. We knew from looking at the economy that the number was going to jump, we just didn’t know it would be that much.”

For 21 years Mr. Powell has taken on the role of area Santa Claus by arriving dark-and-early in the morning and clambering aboard a bucket truck to be dangled near U.S. 29. From there he waves at traffic and chats with radio audiences to remind us that we can help prevent some kid’s holiday from sucking wind.

The Toy Lift will take place Friday, rising from the Fashion Square tarmac at 7 a.m. and flying until 8 p.m. It’ll also be held from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Lauterback Chiropractic Clinic in the Food Lion Shopping Center near Lake Monticello and from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. near Final Touch Tree Service in the Crozet Shopping Center.

Mr. Powell said the big requests from kids this year include all things Barbie and Transformer, toy trucks, cars, dolls, remote control vehicles, stuffed animals and arts and crafts goods. Older kids are looking for electronics, music, jewelry and sports equipment.

The Toy Lift compiles its list of kids from school officials and social services groups and checks it twice against lists of local agencies to make sure the younguns aren’t in line to be helped by others. While the charity tries to make dreams come true, Wiis, flat screen televisions and top-of-the-line gaming computers are out. Books, board games, toys, jewelry and moderately priced electronics, however, are in.

“There were a lot of other organizations that collected toys in the past and they sort of gave up on it, so that’s fallen onto us,” Mr. Powell said. “We were lucky last year in that people were kind and provided enough toys for us to help out other organizations and meet our own needs.”

That could change.

“It’s pretty tough this year. We’ve actually had 500 requests for bicycles and we check to make sure we didn’t give them a bike in the past few years,” Mr. Powell said. “500 bikes: I don’t know how we’re going to pull that off.”

With help, of course.

A little help from friends

“I just hope people will come out with donations, toys and maybe volunteer an hour or two,” he said. “With everything going on in the world, and with this economy, no one is paying attention. That’s understandable. It’s hard to pay attention to others when you’re worried about your own family.”

Volunteers can sign up at http://www.kidslift.org, Mr. Powell said. Others can show up at the sites and give whatever they can.

“It’s a bunch of kids we’re trying to help,” he said. “We don’t want it to be a sad Christmas for them.”