Whether today’s children will eventually contribute constructively to the community or become a debilitating drain on taxpayers depends largely on our leadership today. Constructive mentoring and an occasional helping hand from those in our own neighborhoods shape the inner psychological fabric and moral compass children will carry with them throughout their adult lives.

An alarming, unnerving national statistic is that one in every five American children lives in a state of poverty. Crime-infested neighborhoods, broken homes, inadequate nutrition and dilapidated schools are the larger contributing issues to a widespread problem that only seems to be getting worse by the day.

With the holiday season quickly approaching, many Americans are already looking for an opportunity to give back to children in poorer communities who suffer from these problems.

A very easy and popular way to do this is to donate money or a new, unwrapped toy to the Marine Corps Reserve’s Toys-for-Tots program. Toys-for-Tots was created in 1947 and has distributed over 257 million toys to over 127 million needy children nationwide during its history.

Last year alone, the organization received approximately 14 million toy donations for nearly 6 million children and raised more than $41.8 million in individual monetary donations for toys and operational expenses.

During my three years in the Marine Corps Reserve, I’ve had ample opportunity to see the firsthand impact of public giving for Toys-for-Tots. The wide-eyed, smiling wonderment of a needy child who receives Christmas toys at their residence from Marines in dress blues convinced me immediately that the positive impact on the child is long-term.

What the public must understand is that Toys-for-Tots is a national organization striving to make a local impact. Every donated dollar and toy goes directly to those children living in the same community that contributed their time and money.

All of Ohio’s major metropolitan cities have a separate Toys-for-Tots campaign, usually operated by a local reserve unit or Marine Corps League detachment. The resources branch out from these cities into the surrounding rural areas.

For example, the Dayton Toys-for-Tots branch serves needy children in the entire metro area, but also in 13 counties within the Miami Valley region, with over 11,000 children served.

In Columbus, kids from all suburbs receive support, as well as other central Ohio communities including Marion, Newark and Lancaster. The parents of the needy children in these communities apply with the Toys-for-Tots Foundation for aid, and nearly all are accepted.

Local businesses, malls and civic organizations are indispensable in their effort, assisting in fund-raising and providing locations where toys can be donated. However, the driving force behind the Toys-for-Tots program is the individual contributions donated by members of the community – you and me.

In the end, it’s up to us to assume responsibility for the deprived children in our community, whether we think we can affect their lives or not.

Americans easily shrug off our nation’s problems as being too big to fix, or too complex to address. In our hectic, fast-paced lives, we invariably pull the wool over our own eyes and limit our ability to distinguish just how much impact (both positive and negative) individual people can have on the lives of those in their own communities.

Lending a helping hand within our communities and chipping away at the larger problem on a much smaller scale is the perfect formula for success, giving more weight to personal impact than any piece of legislation coming out of Washington. The Toys-for-Tots program can’t solve all of our children’s problems, but it can provide a bright Christmas for some needy kids.

As the great Winston Churchill once put it, “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”

Andy Topetzes is a senior in political science and criminology. He is also a Marine Corps reservist. Send all comments to [email protected].