Marines Sponsor Motorcycle Ride for Toys For Tots, Wounded Marines

Three to five hundred motorcycle riders are expected to participate in a ride Sunday (Sept. 21) sponsored by Westfield River Valley Detachment 141, Marine Corps League to benefit Toys for Tots and the Marines Helping Marines program.
“We are expecting a good turnout by Marines riders from throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut, depending on the weather,” Detachment Commandant Francis J. Curnow predicted.
The motorcycle ride is scheduled to begin at 10 am at Alexander’s Restaurant in Agawam and proceed to the Veterans Administration Hospital at Leeds, Northampton, where they will pause to interact with patients at 11 am and then drive threw at the Soldiers Home in Holyoke.
“After the Soldiers’ home, we will ride to the Westfield Fair Grounds at about 1 pm for food and entertainment,” Aldo Mancini, chairman of the ride, said. Each rider is expected to donate a new toy for Toys for Tots and pay a $10 registration fee, the proceeds of which will benefit the Marines Helping Marines program.
Registration opens at 8:30 am at Alexander’s Restaurant where coffee and donuts will be available, according to Mancini.
He said the riders will be made up of Marine bike rider groups and those who want to support the Toys for Tots program and helping Marines wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan that are recuperating at hospitals and clinics throughout the country.
Mancini said refreshments and entertainment at the Westfield Fair Grounds will include a band, a DJ and hamburgers and hotdogs. Wrestling demonstrations and other entertainment will be provided.
The Marines Helping Marines, Wounded Marines program was established in the Spring of 2003 at the Bethesda Naval Hospital to provide extensive support for injured Marine Corps personnel and Navy FMF Corpsmen returning from the war on terror in the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. Since then the program has grown to include Balboa Naval Hospital , San Diego- Brooke Army Hospital, San Antonio- Walter Reed Hospital, Washington DC and the Wounded Warrior Regiment at both Camp Pendleton and Camp LeJeune.
What began as an effort to provide emotional support to these wounded Marines and Corpsmen quickly expanded into a need to provide material support in the form of needed health and comfort items.
Toys for Tots began in 1947 when Major Bill Hendricks, USMCR and a group of Marine Reservists in Los Angeles collected and distributed 5,000 toys to needy children. The following year the program was expanded nationwide as a Marine Corps Reserve project.
In 1996, the Commander, Marine Forces Reserve authorized Marine Corps League Detachments to conduct the collection and distribution of new and unwrapped toys as Christmas gifts to needy children in their communities in conjunction with the Marine Corps Reserve.
More than 50,000 new toys were distributed in Western Mass. communities and nationwide the Toys for Tots program distributed 16.6 million new toys to more than 7.5 needy children in 2007.