Toys

Toys like teddy bears, racing cars, building blocks and electric keyboards were strapped to the backs of more than 800 bikes on Sunday morning. As part of the 19th annual Skid Row Toy Run, bikers had come from all over Southern California with presents as their passengers. By early afternoon they would hand out toys to homeless children waiting in line all morning at the Fred Jordan Mission in Los Angeles' Skid Row. "We actually get to see where the majority of the toys go," said Fred "Sarge" Matthews, vice president of ABATE Local 1 of Los Angeles, the event's co-sponsoring motorcycle club.

GLENDALE — At this time last year, the big brown boxes in Glendale Fire Station No. 21's garage overflowed with toys to be handed out to children through the Fire Department's Spark of Love program. But as Christmas approaches this year, the garage is more than half empty. Just a few boxes of toys sit sandwiched between two large fire trucks — a sight that leaves fire officials wondering if they will be able to bring joy to the same large number of children this year.

GLENDALE — New Horizons is making sure that more than 3,000 youngsters from underprivileged families will have toys to open this Christmas through its Holiday Toy Give-Away. Officials working on the 12th annual Gifts on the Horizon toy donation and volunteer drive gathered Thursday morning for a kickoff at Citibank Glendale Central Financial Center. From now until Dec. 15, participating businesses, individuals and service clubs will be collecting toys that will be distributed to children attending the toy event with their parents from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Dec. 16 at the New Horizons Youth Recreation Center, 744 S. Glendale Ave., Glendale.

The Glendale chapter of the Armenian National Committee collected 152 toys and $140 it will use to buy more toys as part of its Christmas celebration Wednesday at the Glendale Youth Center. Half of the toys will be given to the Glendale YWCA's domestic violence shelter. The other half will be sent to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, which occupies one of the poorest counties in the United States, according to local chapter officials. The chapter's new board and scholarship winners were announced at the event.

Laden with toys, struggling to open the door, 7-year-old Scotty Noye emerged from the New Horizons Family Center on Saturday morning, unable to wipe the grin off his face. "I can't hold everything," Scotty said. "My mom is coming with the rest of it." Scotty and his older brother and sister spent three hours waiting in line for the opportunity to pick out gifts in the center's annual toy giveaway, an event that provides presents for nearly 3,000 children. "For some of these kids, this is the biggest gift they'll get this year," said Rich Roche, the president of the board of directors of the family center.

Rosette Gonzales Pfc. Miguel Martinez and Lance Cpl. Emilio Castaneda could be in Iraq with the rest of their unit. Out of 200 Marines in the 4th Low Altitude Air Defense Battalion, they are among the 13 soldiers that weren't deployed overseas. But Martinez and Castaneda are still thinking globally, they're just acting locally. The Marines' presence was as curious as it was commanding when they drove up in their camouflaged Humvee to Curves at Adams Square in Glendale.

For 20 years the Crescenta Valley Sheriff?s Station has collected toys and food for needy foothill families. Confident in the generous nature of valley residents, station volunteers have once again set up collection barrels around the Foothills. ?This year we will be servicing over 150 families, with over 400 children. We have heard from one family with seven children that are homeless and living in a campsite,? said Joanne Berg, sheriff volunteer and the drive?s chairman. ?

A last-minute donation push last week allowed the Crescenta Valley Sheriff?s Station to help more than 160 families in need over the weekend as the station?s annual holiday Toy and Food Drive ended. Los Angeles County Sheriff?s Deputy Jorge Valdivia said they received 2,000 toys ? enough that every child could be given more than one. Each family also received a $20 gift card and up to four bags of groceries. ?Friday was a big push; it was a Christmas miracle,? Valdivia said.

Alex Coolman RIVERSIDE RANCHO -- In a box-filled warehouse on Paula Avenue, Joan McCarthy picked up a small orange plush dog named Drooler. "I had 65,000 of these," McCarthy noted. "No, they don't drool." The dogs, based on a character in the movie "102 Dalmatians," hadn't been a particularly hot seller, said McCarthy, a spokeswoman for The Walt Disney Co. But they were going to end up in the arms of children anyway because of a Disney program to donate toys to the Fred Jordan Mission of Los Angeles.

The Glendale Fire Department and Los Angeles County Fire Department collected thousands of toys during the Spark of Love Toy Drive to help out needy families during the holidays. "It went really well. We collected and distributed over 5,000 toys to the needy charities as well as the needy families," said Glendale Fire Department Public Information Officer Bill Lynch, of Station 21. The toy drive started Nov. 19 and ran through Christmas Eve. The drive itself has been an ongoing charity for the past 13 years.

A 10-year-old boy was arrested in Burbank Sunday after reportedly pointing a toy gun at a woman who thought it was real. The boy, whose identity was not released because he is a minor, knocked on the front door of a house in the 1100 block of Evergreen Street and allegedly pointed the plastic gun at a 67-year-old woman who answered the door. The boy allegedly picked the house because the woman's grandson reportedly beat up his friend at school, Burbank police Lt. John Dilibert said.

The Glendale chapter of the Armenian National Committee collected 152 toys and $140 it will use to buy more toys as part of its Christmas celebration Wednesday at the Glendale Youth Center. Half of the toys will be given to the Glendale YWCA's domestic violence shelter. The other half will be sent to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, which occupies one of the poorest counties in the United States, according to local chapter officials. The chapter's new board and scholarship winners were announced at the event.

Firefighters delivered 144 toy bags Wednesday to children at the Head Start Riverdale program in Glendale. Los Angeles-based TelePacific donated the decorative bags, which contained about 10 toys each, to the Glendale Fire Department. Firefighters arrived at the campus in the 300 block of Riverdale Drive in the department's ladder truck to hand out the toys. Toy donations were down this holiday season from past years while the need for gifts increased, Firefighter Chris Mays said.

A 21-year-old Glendale man who stopped by the Police Department to pay a parking ticket ended up leaving with a citation for petty theft after he took a Jenga game from a toy donation box for low-income families. Vruyr Nazaryan was cited Dec. 8 on suspicion of petty theft after a police officer noticed that he had allegedly taken the wood block game from the Cops For Kids donation box located in police headquarters, Sgt. Tom Lorenz said. Police, who run the program, hand out the collected gifts to low-income Glendale families for Christmas.

A Metrolink train covered in some 50,000 sparkling lights stopped for adoring fans in Burbank and Glendale Sunday evening as crowds donated hundreds of toys for low-income families. The Metrolink Toy Express, which benefits local nonprofits and agencies, attracted hundreds of people at each stop. In Burbank, where the firefighters' Spark of Love toy drive was beneficiary, fire engineer John Freeborn said the need was as great as ever. “The toy donations have been going down and the requests have been going up. It's just a sign of the times,” he said.

The students of Montrose Christian Montessori School donated more than 150 shoe boxes filled with toys and school supplies to children living in some of the poorest areas around the world. The boxes were donated to Samaritan's Purse, an international relief organization through the Operation Christmas Child program. “Support for this program has been tremendous, and we were delighted to see many of the children donating two or three boxes each,” said Sharon Lee, administrator of Montrose Christian Montessori School.

Firefighters across the region have kicked their Christmas toy drives into high gear in advance of Metrolink's Holiday Toy Express tour of 32 cities through mid-December. Organizers are encouraging the public to drop new, unwrapped toys off at local fire stations and at Metrolink platforms as a specially decorated train decked out in 50,000 Christmas lights makes its rounds. And of course, Santa will be riding the locomotive. The campaign typically collects thousands of toys that are distributed to local needy families ahead of Christmas.

A distant land was introduced to the fifth and sixth graders of Cameo Draper's class at Crescenta Valley Adventist School Wednesday morning when the students played with a box of toys and games that had been shipped from Taiwan. The La Crescenta school was one of more than 1,000 Adventist schools across North America that received such a box to encourage children to celebrate the centennial of Taiwan - officially known as the Republic of China. The official name of China is the People's Republic of China.

CENTRAL GLENDALE — Police on Tuesday arrested a homeless man who pointed a toy assault rifle at passing vehicles near Glendale Memorial Hospital, officials said. Witness reports began coming in at 6:25 a.m. that the man, later identified as 57-year-old John Schwartz, was pointing an AK-47 assault rifle at passing vehicles at Los Feliz Road and Brand Boulevard, Glendale Police Sgt. Tom Lorenz said. Fearing that Schwartz would fire what they thought was a real gun, Lorenz said several motorists swerved to avoid his aim. A dozen police units arrived within two minutes and surrounded Schwartz, Lorenz said, shutting down the intersection.

The Walt Disney Co. on Thursday said it was looking into claims that a line of reusable bags that bear images from "Toy Story" and "Cars" contain 15 times the level of lead allowed in children's products. Charles Margulis, a spokesman for the Center for Environmental Health, which monitors lead levels in children's products and sues firms that allegedly violate the law, said his agency bought the bags at a Safeway store and had them tested at an independent laboratory. "The hazardous lead levels in Disney-themed products from a major retailer like Safeway are especially disappointing now that it has been almost three years since federal legislation banned lead in children's products," center executive director Michael Green said in a statement.