Vic Tab Hosts Toys for Tots Giveaway

For the first time in our church history, we hosted the annual Toys for Tots giveaway and it was such a wonderful event! This is the sixtieth year of Toys for Tots, so it's been around longer than I have, but I had never seen the end result of all those collection boxes.

The toys were collected and delivered to our church. There were approximately 400 gifts that were then assigned to children and wrapped - our church provided the wrapping paper, tape, bows, and hands to do the wrapping. All was ready for this morning!

In our service this morning, we had more than 50 visiting children (with their parents, grandparents, or guardians). It was a great opportunity for our church to reach out to our community and the saints of Victory Tabernacle pulled together to make it a very memorable event. Those who were not at church this morning will be able to pick up their gifts tomorrow (another opportunity for them to "meet" our church.)

We had an abbreviated Sunday school - giving the families a glimpse of what goes on each week. Everyone then came into the sanctuary for a short morning worship service. We had singing and collected our Christmas for Christ offering. We had a puppet show, which included a guitar playing angel. And Pastor White preached "Jesus was Born in a Stable."

After our time of worship, Sis. Trish took over with her helpers. Eliana and Chloee each had lists of names of the children who were to receive gifts. They would read the name, hand the gift to a marine, who would then give it to the child. After the child received his or her gift, they sat on the floor in the front of the church. When the last child received their gift, they all opened their gifts at the same time! It was so fun to watch!! Watching children whose names were called at the beginning, holding their gifts, and trying soooo hard not to open them while they waited was a lot of fun! And when they all got to open their gifts, it was absolute mayhem!!

Following the gift presentation, everyone in attendance was invited downstairs for a full holiday meal provided by the ladies of our church- turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, veggies, salad, and cake! I helped with the serving and one Mom said about her boys, "they got just what they wanted!" So cool!

I think everyone in attendance was pleased and we're praying that this won't be the last time that we see these families.