Smoky Mountain Toys for Tots is looking for a home once again.
After months of searching yielded what they thought would be a long-term space in the old Protected 2nd gun store building, the store’s owners are planning to reopen the business, leaving Toys for Tots in need a of a new space for the second time this year. Toys for Tots can stay through Christmas.
In a side room of the Georgia Road building, surrounded by hundreds of children’s toys, Toys for Tots regional coordinator Randy Hughes and volunteers have been hard at work bagging gifts for kids in Macon, Jackson, Haywood, Swain and Rabun counties.
Between the gun store reopening and the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the group has a challenge in trying to locate a new space to store their toys.
“This is my 15th year as a coordinator, and I’ve never had problems with buildings until now,” said Hughes. “I had to find a building, but I usually found them pretty quick. … I thought they would let us use the old Kmart, but the guy told me they were worried about liability. I told him we have our own liability insurance. The foundation provides that for us so whoever we rent from won’t be liable for any damage that we may cause.”
Toys for Tots is now in search of a new home for the second time this year after Ingles asked them to vacate their former suite in the Holly Springs Plaza ahead the planned construction of a Super Ingles complex on that site.
While the group can stay where they are until after the Christmas holiday, they have a long way to go before their work for the year is done.
“We’re already over 2,000 kids that’s come in, just from what I’ve seen,” said Hughes. “Last year I think we had right around 2,000, and we still have three weeks to go before Christmas. We’re probably going to have to shut the application off this week. We usually keep it open until the 15th, but with not getting the toys or the money coming in like it normally does, we might have to cross it off, and that’s something that we’ve never had to do. We’ve always managed every year, somehow, to fill every request.”
With the economic effects of COVID-19 leaving fewer families able to pay for Christmas or donate to Toys for Tots this year, Hughes and his team will be hard-pressed to fill every request for toys this season. Because Hughes does much of the group’s shopping after Christmas (when stores offer their biggest discounts) and puts toys in storage until the following winter, Toys for Tots will be at a big disadvantage next year if they fail to find a new space soon. While the group will need to find a new space after its busy Christmas holiday, this is far from the first time the group has had to find a new space.
“When I first started this, volunteering before I became the coordinator, we worked out of warehouses and storage buildings, but we were only doing Macon County,” said Hughes. “Then we had the building that used to be where the sheriff’s department is now, and when I became the coordinator we got to use [a building] on Georgia Road. … We got to use the old Mexican restaurant, and then we moved into the old library before they turned it into the [Senior Services Center]. Then we moved out of there to what’s now the VA clinic. … We used the library two years and then the VA clinic two years, and then we moved into the old Walmart building.”
In order to accommodate the large number of toys the group accumulates throughout the year, Hughes said he would be happy to rent a space of at least 2,000 square feet with a bathroom and heat. Although the group is still accepting donations from now until Christmas, thus far they have only collected about half of their 2019 total, but donations like the one it received recently from the High Mountain Squares dancing club go a long way.
“High Mountain Squares has been giving to Toys for Tots for many years,” said the group’s president, Betty Fisher. “We consider it a real honor to show our love for children here in the mountains of Northeast Georgia, and this is our one opportunity to do it. Generally we meet on the first Friday in December and take our toys, but this year because of COVID we opted to give a donation to the tune of $645.”
To contact Randy Hughes regarding a new space or to donate to Smoky Mountain Toys for Tots, visit toysfortots.org and click “Find Your Local Campaign.”