Hurricane Helene continues to impact our community.
When members of the Salvation Army of the Sandhills were dispatched to mountain communities, donations to their Angel Tree program in Cumberland County dried up. There were 1,300 requests this year, but as of last week 800 were still unanswered.
That's when the Marine's Toys for Tots program came to the rescue.
"They came in, they helped us with filling those 800 that hasn't been turned in by last Tuesday or Wednesday," said Capt. Jamie Goldfarb of the Salvation Army of the Sandhills.
The Salvation Army would have had to spend $72,000 to purchase the remaining gifts.
Tiffany Jones, the local Marines Toys for Tots campaign coordinator, said that they collected about 8,000 toys this year.
"We do get donations from the foundation to supplement and as a result of that we're going to be able to help over 11,000 children - that's a thousand plus than last year," Jones said. "We're super excited about what we did this year."