Toys for Tots makes train stop in Sparta – New Jersey Herald

SPARTA — The train whistle blew as the crew for Operation Toy Train, Toys for Tots and Santa Claus himself rolled into the Sparta Train Station, delivering gifts and cheer on Saturday.

The initiative each year picks up unwrapped, new toys for children of all ages and redistributes the toys to those in need throughout Northern New Jersey.

More than 14,000 gifts were collected and will be distributed this year. One of the local beneficiaries is Project Self-Sufficiency’s Season of Hope Toy Shop, which serves more than 2,000 area children.

Saturday’s train ride began at 9 a.m. in Rochelle Park, with seven toy collection stops, before arriving in Sparta at 3:30 p.m.

“Every year has been different and bigger than ever,” said Bill Dermody IV, operator of the Sparta Train Station. “We think it will keep growing. This is my favorite day of the year.”

“We’re helping the Company G, 2nd Batallion, 25th Marines, 4th Marine Division with a mission,” said John Sobotka, co-coordinator of Operation Toy Train.

Carolyn Hoffman, Operation Toy Train co-coordinator, has seen the impact of the program. During one of the past events, she saw a father with two children stop by to drop off a small batch of gifts and take a photo with Santa. He quietly pulled Hoffman aside and asked what the fee would be for a photo. He told her he had been out of work for almost two years and could not afford for his children to have a photo taken if there was a fee.

She asked for his information, and his family ended up being one of the beneficiaries of the toy drive. The father, who had been having difficulties pulling together gifts for Christmas, was surprised the group was able to donate gifts for his children.

Two years later, a man approached Hoffman and asked, “Do you remember me?”

It was the same man. He told her that shortly after the toy drive where they met, he secured a job. He said he had some items for the toy drive, and said he needed some volunteers. With tears in her eyes, Hoffman recalled how volunteers followed the man to his car and found his trunk packed with gifts to donate.

She said he told her, “The Marines helped me. I wanted to give something back.”

Operation Toy Train is a non-profit group that coordinates the pickup of donated toys from Toys for Tots within New Jersey and Southern New York; then works with the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves Toys for Tots to redistribute the donated items within the area.

The historic Sparta Train Station, a non-profit organization run by the Dermody family that hosts special programs and events, is celebrating its third year as part of the toy drive with Operation Toy Train and Toys for Tots. The Sparta Train Station is an end point on the full-day route, where collected toys are off-loaded from the train, loaded into trucks and distributed by Toys for Tots out of Picatinny Arsenal to locations in Sussex, Essex, Morris, Warren, Bergen, Passaic, and Hudson counties.

“It gets busy but it’s very rewarding,” said 1st Sgt. Eduardo Ascencio, Northern New Jersey coordinator for Toys for Tots.

“It’s a great opportunity,” said Maj. Luke Pernott, inspector instructor of the Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marines. “We don’t have a lot of interaction with the local community and this gives us this opportunity.”

That opportunity to give back to the community had an immediate impact on Project-Self Sufficiency, which received a delivery of items on Saturday for the Season of Hope Toy Shop.

“We are indebted to Operation Toy Train and the United States Marine Corps for their invaluable contribution to this effort every year,” said Deborah Berry-Toon, executive director of Project Self-Sufficiency. “We simply could not run the Season of Hope Toy Shop without them.”

For more information about Operation Toy Train, visit: www.OperationToyTrain.org.

For Toys for Tots in Northern New Jersey, visit: www.dover-nj.toysfortots.org.

For the Sparta Train Station, visit: www.spartatrainstation.com.

For Project Self-Sufficiency, visit: www.projectselfsufficiency.org.

 

Jennifer Jean Miller can also be reached by phone at: 973-383-1230; and on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/JMillerNJH.