The annual Toys for Tots drive has opened across the North Olympic Peninsula to collect holiday presents for needy children — and warm the hearts of volunteers and donors.

“The benefit to the volunteers is to just experience the remarkable generosity of our neighbors,” said Steve Deutermann of the Marine Corps League, lead agency for the charity that is in its 68th year.

People can donate new toys or make cash contributions to the program, but that’s not the only giving that goes on, he said.

“Businesses donate storage space, forklifts and other handling equipment, trailers (tractor-trailer size), and the Mount Pleasant Grange (a program sorting site) and its members donate much, much time,” Deutermann said.

“Every dime collected in the county stays in the county. Every toy donated or purchased in the county also stays in the county.”

Starting Friday and running Fridays and Saturdays through Friday, Dec. 18, volunteers from the Marine Corps League, American Legion Riders and Port Angeles High School Junior ROTC will staff drop-off locations at Walmart stores in Port Angeles and Sequim and at Swain’s General Store in Port Angeles.

Other Port Angeles partners with the Marine Reserves include The Crossing Church, Salvation Army, Clallam County Court Lift Program, Clallam County Veterans Relief, Boys and Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula (Port Angeles and Sequim), Hillcrest Baptist Church, Dry Creek Elementary School, Ministry Assisting Neighbors in Need with Agapé (MANNA), and Clallam County Outreach.

In the county’s West End, they include North Olympic Regional Veterans Housing Network, Concerned Citizens, West End Outreach, Quileute Housing Authority, Makah Family Services, and Clallam Bay Church of Christ.

Sequim agencies include Dungeness Community Church, North Olympic Foster Parent Association, Greywolf Elementary School, Sinclair Place, and Sequim Community Aid.

In Port Townsend, partners include the Port Townsend Kiwanis Club and Jefferson Transit, which will hold a “Fill the Bus with Toys” event from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 5 at the foot of Sims Way downtown.

New, unwrapped toys will be accepted, as will cash donations.

Deutermann said partner agencies request toys for children by age and gender. Toys for Tots collects or buys the toys and distributes them.

Last year in Clallam County, 2,600 children received an average of two toys apiece ranging from dolls to sports gear.

In Jefferson County, program director Don Olsen said from 750 to 900 children had received toys in 2014.

Toys for Tots is the central charity in Jefferson County for toy donations, he said, leaving other agencies to concentrate on what Olsen called “physical comfort needs” like coats and socks.

They are provided by groups that include the Kiwanis Club and Elks Club and the Christmas for Children Program.

If the charity collects more toys than can be given away in Jefferson County, they are sent to distribution centers at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Oak Harbor and Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Olsen said.

________

Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.