Page 20 - Flathead Beacon // 12.14.16

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DECEMBER 14, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
Toys for the Holidays
Toy Makers
The
Two Flathead Valley woodworkers toil all year long to make the holidays
BY JUSTIN FRANZ a PHOTOS BY GREG LINDSTROM
s a cold wind whipped outside his heated shop, inside Edwin Toren put the nishing touches on a dozen doll cribs and reminisced about growing up on a farm on the Rocky Mountain Front. ¶ “Christmas didn’t happen a lot for us back then because times were tough,” Toren said, recall- ing his years growing up near Valier in the 1950s. “If we were lucky, we’d usually get one present — always something useful like clothing or socks — and maybe an orange or some hard candy.” ¶ The thought of those meager Christmases sends Toren,
70, into the shop behind his house in Columbia Falls almost every day.
“I just can’t stand the thought of a kid not getting a toy on Christmas morning,” he said.
But thanks to his e orts, many kids in the Flathead Valley will receive a new toy this holiday season. Every year, Toren and another local woodworker, Bob Redinger, toil away in their shops making hundreds of toys that they donate to the local Toys for Tots drive. Their annual e ort to ll the co ers with wooden toys is a throwback to the very rst item Toys for Tots collected back in 1947: a handmade doll.
U.S. Marine Corps Major Bill Hendricks organized the rst toy drive in Los Angeles and collected more than 5,000 toys that year. The following year, the Marine Corps Reserve adopted the program and expanded it across the country. Today, Toys for Tots annually collects more than 16 million toys for 7 mil- lion children. Locally, the Toys for Tots program gathers about 10,000 toys every holiday season that are distributed to more
ABOVE Woodworker Edwin Toren.
LEFT Bob Redinger shows wooden toy cars he is donating to Toys for Tots.
a little brighter for local children