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Toy Drive 2007

January 14, 2008

I want to take the opportunity to thank you for participating in the 2007 Noblemen Toy Drive and to also share a couple of stories with you. This year was by far the most successful year for gathering toys and I hope that we can continue to grow this effort and reach out to more and more children every year.

Here are a couple of great stories that we picked up while playing Santa. We provided toys for over 700 children this year and these children received a bag of toys, not just a toy, a bag of toys each. Most every child received a board game, a stuffed animal, a large toy for their specific age group, and several other smaller toys in their bag. For older children we gave out over 100, $35 gift cards to Wal Mart. Many of the children received stockings that we made and in one very special circumstance someone got a bike.

One of the best reactions we got was from a little girl who was extremely excited to receive a brand new teddy bear. She spent several minutes examining her bear and in a room full of people exclaimed at the top of her lungs, “OH MY GOSH, MY BEAR WAS MADE IN CHINA!!!” She could not believe that her new teddy bear traveled around the world just to be with her.

Perhaps the best story to come out of the 2007 toy drive is this one. We distributed an unbelievable amount of toys this year and when the day before Christmas arrived, we still had about 500 toys left. We decided to pack up a couple of vans and camp out in a grocery store parking lot in a section of town where we thought kids might really be in need of some presents. We ended up meeting a lot of great children that afternoon and gave away all of the toys. When all of the toys had been picked through and there were only a few things left, we noticed a little boy intently looking through a toy box. A colleague of mine and I approached him and asked him if there was something in particular that he was looking for and he responded, “I am looking for something for my little sister.” Well if that isn’t the Christmas spirit I don’t know what is. It just so happened that we had packed a brand new dirt bike in the back of one of the vans and up until that moment had forgotten that we had brought it with us. We had a conversation with the young man about why it made us feel a great sense of gratitude that he was looking for gifts with someone else in mind and proceeded to give him the a bike. He was absolutely speechless but did manage to tell us that he had never had his own bike. He left that day with several gifts for his little sister and a brand spanking new dirt bike for himself. Tell me if that is not what Christmas is all about!

Thank you all for making stories like this possible. We made this Christmas a lot more wonderful than it would have been for some great kids in our community this year and I give each and every one of you a collective pat on the back. Thank you again for your support and enthusiasm in making all of this possible. I hope that we can count on you again next year to make it another Christmas to remember! Please share this email with your staff and customers who helped make Christmas possible for these kids. Please forward this as well to any branch offices that you have who participated.

Kindest Regards,

Pete Hansen - Noblemen