The numbers — like Kansas City’s generosity and love — keep growing.

This holiday season the U.S. Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots operation in the Kansas City area is aiming to distribute more than 52,000 toys. That’s a 30% increase since LINC first started helping the Marines in the monumental task five years ago.

“It’s been a lot of work and it’s been a lot of time,” said U.S. Marines Sgt. Calvin Smith. “But the Kansas City community came through.”

LINC traditionally has helped sort and bag the thousands of toys that come through the Marines’ warehouse in Belton, but this year LINC’s team was summoned to a special work day at the Marines’ toy operation at the Overland Park Convention Center.

To donate, go to Toys for Tots Kansas City

There, dozens of LINC staff joined with the Marines plus volunteers including help from the host convention center staff and Honeywell to get that day’s giant pile of toys reboxed and bagged by the appropriate age range and gender to facilitate the massive toy distribution now under way.

LINC will be dividing and distributing 7,500 toys to families through its 55 Caring Communities sites across the Kansas City area.

But LINC’s partnership with the Marines has everyone at its heart. said LINC’s Carl Wade.

“We do this because we are part of the community,” Wade said. “It’s a bigger picture. We want to make sure these toys get to all the families and all the non-profits, all the children.”

LINC, through its many programs in the community, connect with families that could use some extra support in the holidays, said Rena Tilley, a LINC coordinator in the Missouri Work Assistance program and Skill-Up program.

Photo courtesy the Overland Park Convention Center

“We help parents who are on food stamps, who are going back to school to get a high school diploma or getting into a career,” Tilley said. “They definitely need toys, love, clothing, stockings . . .”

LINC originally stepped up to help in 2020 when Wade met with the toy operation commanders and learned that the Marines needed assistance to get all the toys out on time. Sgt. Smith, who is helping lead the Marines’ toy operation for the first time this season, has now seen how well the partnership works, first hand.

“You can have a large pile of toys sitting there,” Smith said, “and I can turn around for 10 minutes and come back and LINC has taken care of it all — got it bagged up, boxed up and sorted by group.”

it’s simply “a beautiful partnership” between the U.S. Marines and LINC, Wade said. “We’re getting the job done.”

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