VIENNA — The members of the Vienna Christian Life Assembly (VCLA) asked for the help of the community to gather toys in order to help needy families provide Christmas for children and the community responded. They received many donations and had a lot of new and used toys to give away last Friday evening and on Saturday. They needed it because over 400 children were served by the 5th Annual Community Christmas Toy Drive.

VCLA leader, Jama Kelley said the toy drive went really well. They had so many donations and so many children who needed toys and clothing. With over 400 children served, they still had about a half of table of used toys left and were still getting calls and giving it away. This was the biggest Christmas toy drive to date and Kelley said she is pleased the community got behind them and donated toys and other items for children. Other churches also stepped up and helped. “It was really something this year,” Kelley said.

On Friday night, they served over 200 children in one hour and the line outside the church fellowship area was all the way to the pavilion. It was mostly parents who came to pick out toys for their children, and the church had a room staffed with people to look after the children who came with parents so that the children would be surprised on Christmas with their toy gifts. “It is such a blessing to us to see how the community comes together to help, and to see the heartbreaking cases where kids won’t get Christmas without this,” she said. “The need this year was bigger than it’s ever been.”

VCLA Pastor Clifford Wagner greeted people at the door and signed up those who wanted it for one of the two donated Christmas dinners for their family, no matter what the size of it, and a chance for a foosball table and a ping pong table. Wagner said those who were interested in any of these new items filled out a paper and they had a drawing at the church on Sunday. He said this was new this year and they felt a drawing was the fairest way to give these items away. 

As he greeted those coming into the building during the toy drive, Wagner said he saw all of the people and some of their situations were not good. “There were people in situations that were not brought on by themselves. They found themselves in a tough spot.” Wagner saw grandparents raising grandchildren. One grandmother asked him if they had a Christmas tree, saying she never thought she would find herself raising kids again. She had five kids to take care of because their mom is in jail. And, she had no Christmas tree and thought the kids should have one. Wagner said they didn’t have a tree but he took her name, telling her they would get her one. “It was important to her to get it,” Wagner said. The VCLA congregation took care of it and provided the grandmother with a Christmas tree. 

Friday night of the toy drive saw the most people served. On Saturday, as he stood at the door greeting people, Wagner said he had to tell them they didn’t have many new toys left. The were letting each child have one new toy and two used toys. On Saturday, they removed the limit on used toys because they had given away a good portion of the new toys on Friday night. They told them, “If you can use it, you can have it” and they had toys until the end. Wagner said the Holy Hatters from the Vienna United Methodist Church had a toy collection and brought a lot of toys to be distributed at the VCLA toy drive. “All that helps,” he said. People would leave with trash bags full of stuff. There were some very generous donations of new, big ticket toys that showed the generosity of community members

There were other particular needs such as requests for winter coats, which they put the word out into the community and got the coats in the sizes requested.

He saw one young man who appeared to be hard working and when he came in the young man “went straight to the clothes” and for about an hour he looked at and sorted clothes. He was not much interested in the toys. It was the clothes he needed. “He could have gone down the row of new toys, but he went for the clothes,” Wagner said.

Wagner said some of the families are hurting because they are fractured for many reasons. One man told him he never thought he would be where he is at today. His wife is on drugs and was bringing the family down and putting them in danger. They had to let her go. 

Wagner said if a person sat in the corner and watched it all, they would see the many needy people in our communities. People came from Vienna, Vichy, Belle, Rolla, Linn, Jefferson City, St. James and elsewhere. These needs are real and they need to be met. Wagner said he said a prayer for God “to help me and us to do what we can to meet this need and to find a way to do it.” The Christmas toy drive is a way to meet the need at least at Christmas. Wagner said people with “a servant’s heart put other people first and go out of their way to help and serve.”