Lakeside Memorial Funeral Home, Inc. started Operation Toy Soldier in the WNY area 4 years ago as part of the Veterans Funeral Care National Network. After much deliberation, Lakeside wanted to partner with veteran’s programs that were falling through the cracks and not receiving assistance with the children they represent.
Lakeside started working with the VA Program for the Homeless. They help homeless veterans get back on their feet by assisting with housing, healthcare, and jobs for them. There are over 100 children in this program and because of their financial situation, they had no toys for Christmas.
Operation Toy Soldier provided these children a Christmas.
A year after Lakeside started the program, Keller Chevrolet reached out and volunteered to partner with the toy drive. Since then, both businesses have collected as many as 2800 toys per year.
The success they had allowed them to expand their donations to the Niagara Falls Airforce Base Children’s Christmas Party. There are over 250 children in attendance, and many of them are kids of deployed parents. Until Operation Toy Soldier got involved there were no toys for them. Now, each child is presented toys from Santa at the party. Also, left over toys are used as prizes for the summer programs that the Airforce base runs.
While both businesses receive toys all year round, the big push starts on Veterans Day and continues until December 15th. This way they can catalog and distribute the toys to both wonderful programs.
You can drop off any new, unwrapped toys at either Lakeside Memorial Funeral Home locations: 4199 Lake Shore Rd. Hamburg, NY 14075 or 1340 Union Rd. West Seneca, NY 14224, or at Keller Chevrolet 3600 Genesee St. Cheektowaga, NY 14225.
Lakeside Memorial Funeral Home and Keller Chevrolet are thrilled that they have helped our veterans’ families who have given so much to our country.
