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The Feed the Need Foundation’s second annual Fill the Fence toy drive wrapped up the Thursday before Christmas and “it went fantastic,” according to Kathy Larlee, chairman of the board for the foundation.
Feed the Need began as a family helping others at the local level for over a decade; they have been adopting Christmas families for at least 15 years.
Starting in 2018, Feed the Need grew as a grassroots effort, by a handful of small businesses and their owners in Rockbridge and Botetourt counties. In 2020, this expanded to include local businesses and their owners in Florida.
Striving to make the best impact possible, the Larlees founded Feed the Need Foundation as a 501(c)3, in 2021. The organization works by, with, and through local communities to feed the physical, intellectual, and emotional needs of those that need a hand-up. Its main areas of focus are food, books and toys, through food pantries in schools, lending libraries and the “For the Love of Books” program, and two toys drives, “Fill the Fence – Annual Toy Drives” in Virginia, and “Truckin’ for Toys - Annual Toy Drives” in South Florida.
The culmination of the local drive was held on Dec. 22 at the local YMCA. People who had registered a family came in and got to pick out toys for the children in the family “shop” from a wide array of options, including sleds, scooters, action figures, dolls, stuffed animals, Tonka trucks and Nerf guns. There were also options for older kids, including makeup kits for girls and footballs and basketballs. Larlee said that the foundation’s goal each Christmas was to have between three and five gifts for each child, and this year there were enough donated toys for each child to receive five gifts.
“When we picked up the donations, we realized we had enough to give more [this year],” she said. “That’s why we set them up and let the parents ‘shop’ for the kids, because we had extra.”
It wasn’t only parents who “shopped” for their children. Anyone, Larlee noted, could register a family and pick out gifts for the children. One person who came to the YMCA was a manager at a local business who was shopping for Christmas gifts for one of her employee’s children.
While the overall number of donations was up, Larlee said that she had to go out that Thursday afternoon and get some more footballs, soccer balls and basketballs for some of the older kids.
“There’s always a shortage there for the older kids,” she said. “It’s unfortunate. It seems like people think being a child stops at about 10 years old when it comes to Christmas gifts, and that’s just not right. We expect [older kids] to be kids, we want them to be kids, and it’s few and far between who actually donate gifts for the older kids.”
Larlee estimated that “at least 80 kids” in Rockbridge County received Christmas gifts through Fill the Fence. While many came to the YMCA to shop for the gifts, some families had gifts delivered by members of the Rockbridge County Sheriff’s Office that Thursday night and Larlee, along with members of the Buena Vista Police Department, even made a few last-minute deliveries to families on Christmas Eve.
Feed the Need will also be donating toys to Yellow Brick Road Early Learning Center in Lexington once they return in January, to help replenish some of the center’s toys.
Donations given to the toy drive came from all over the county, and weren’t just in the form of toys. The Pilot/ Flying J Travel Center in Raphine raised $1,200 from customers’ spare change through their Truckers for Tots campaign. Feed the Need partnered with the following organizations for the toy drive: Rockbridge County Sheriff’s Office, Buena Vista Police Department, FOP - Buena Vista Lodge No. 31, Odd Fellows Lodge No. 58 – Lexington, VA, and Lexington Police Department.
In addition to the Pilot/ Flying J Travel Center, Larlee gave thanks to the other organizations that contributed to the toy drive: The Home Depot Foundation, Avis-Budget Group, CornerStone Bank, Rockbridge YMCA, Community Foundation of RBA, Jaclyn’s Hope, Van Hardenbergh, PC, as well as the businesses that hosted a toy donation box and the members of the community who donated toys.
