An angel lands hand to toy drive
Published: November 30, 2005
oys that will fill at least six tractor-trailers were readied Tuesday to be trucked to Hurricane Katrina victims — including a bicycle donated by the mother of a little girl who died only days before the drive began.
The effort evolved from a toy drive led by New Jersey 101.5 FM radio weekend disc jockey “Big Joe” Henry, who said, “These donations came from everybody from Girl Scouts to big corporations,” adding later, “That’s the type of heart. That’s the type of soul.”
The little girl, age 3, was named Megan O’Brien, said Henry, who said her mother had walked up to a toy-drive the station held in Woodbridge, and said, “This was my daughter’s. She died a week and a half ago. This belongs here.” [Beyond Tears : Living After Losing a Child]
“I couldn’t move,” said Ray Handel, the station’s director of marketing. “And that was it,” Henry said, saying station officials don’t know where the little girl lived, though they recalled she may have resided near Freehold in Monmouth County.
Henry placed a photo of the girl atop the image of a holiday tree that is part of a backdrop the disc jockey will use in broadcasts from the devastated region.
The radio personality called the girl “an angel.”
The toys, which include about everything one might imagine that would be a North Pole export, are set to be trucked to the Southeast starting Dec. 10.
For about a week thereafter, Henry and others will roam Louisiana and Mississippi delivering the goods through relief contacts made by New Jersey State Police.
“We knew that would be a big void in their lives,” Henry said of children left homeless by the hurricane. The state patrol had sent units to the region in September, where it established links to local relief groups in its monthlong tour of policing the ruins.
State Police Superintendent Col. Joseph “Rick” Fuentes hailed the charity work, saying, “That’s what New Jersey is known for.”
The drive outdid itself. Henry said he envisioned taking in 20,000 to 25,000 toys and children’s books. As of Tuesday, the effort collected 60,000 to 65,000 toys and books. [The Hidden Power of Kindness: A Practical Handbook for Souls, Who Dare to Transform the World, One Deed at a Time]
“I don’t think anybody really knows how many trucks are going down there,” said Ed Devine, chief executive officer of Eastern Carriers, which donated the vehicles, starting with the promise of one truck, then expanding the fleet as the toys piled up.
The notion of one or two trucks had grown to at least six tractor-trailers, a tour bus, a storage trailer and a station van, Henry said.
“The people of New Jersey have stepped up big. I’ve said that our new state slogan should be ‘Big attitude. Bigger hearts,’ ” said Andy Santoro, president and general manager of the station, one of several in New Jersey owned by Millennium Broadcasting.
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