Play Comforts Partnership Kicks Off the Holiday Season at MacDill Air Force Base

On November 17, 2010 representatives from the Toy Industry Foundation (TIF) and Boys and Girls Clubs of America (BCGA) visited MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida for the largest Play Comforts toy distribution to date. The event began with a display of colors by the Honor Guard and welcome by Commander Colonel Lenny Richoux

The partners then showed the Air Force community what they are thankful for – the service and sacrifice of our nation’s military - by distributing more than 5,000 toys and DVDs to the airmen and their families. 
With this distribution, TIF’s national partnership with the BCGA Military Services has now hosted special events for all five branches of service. In addition to these representative toy distributions, the Play Comforts program also sends toys year round to kids at Boys and Girls Clubs on the 21 bases with the highest deployment rates across the nation. By year-end, the Foundation will have distributed 25,000 toys to military families.

Special thanks to David Engle, Charlie Lechner, Lisa Laconte and their team of volunteers for helping to make play possible. Toys distributed at the event were generously donated to TIF’s Toy Bank program by American Plastic Toys, Cloud B, Curtain Critters, Hasbro, House of Ingri, Mattel, and Techno Source.

Photos by David Mills