Firefighters arrive at Capitol with donated toys for Alabama children

MONTGOMERY – More than 5,000 children throughout Alabama are receiving toys for Christmas through this year’s toy drive organized through Operation Grateful Heart and the Hoover Fire Department.

This is the sixth year Operation Grateful Heart and the Hoover Fire Department have teamed up to collect donated toys and distribute them to children who have a parent away from home at Christmas because they’re serving in the military. Operation Grateful Heart is an initiative Governor Bob Riley started in 2004 to provide assistance to military personnel and their families.

Some of the toys collected through the toy drive are also given to non-profit organizations that distribute them to disadvantaged children in the state.

“No child should wake up on Christmas morning and not have a toy to unwrap,” said Governor Riley.  “We want to do everything we can to make sure no child is forgotten during Christmas.”

Hoover fire fighters arrived at the State Capitol Monday morning with the toys.  Volunteers from Maxwell Air Force Base, the Sunshine Center, the Family Guidance Center in Montgomery, the Governor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and other groups are organizing the donated toys and making sure they get to the right locations.  Among the groups that helped collect donated toys are the Alabama Department of Children’s Affairs, the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs, the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations, AIDT and the group Mourning to Morning.

Since the toy drive started six years ago, more than 19,000 toys have been donated.