{"id":69928,"date":"2025-12-24T22:39:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T22:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/69928\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T22:39:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T22:39:11","slug":"toys-for-tots-helps-families-in-need-across-pittsburgh-area-amid-rising-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/69928\/","title":{"rendered":"Toys for Tots helps families in need across Pittsburgh area amid rising demand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Christmas is a time when many kids look forward to getting toys, but 2025 was a year that saw many families across the country struggling in the current economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Subsequently, this year saw some of those families turn to their local Toys for Tots chapter to help give their kids a Merry Christmas. One place that seems to have bucked the national trend, however, is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.toysfortots.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-absolute=\"true\">Toys for Tots<\/a> chapter in Greensburg, which serves a majority of Westmoreland County.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As far as toys, this year alone we had over 26,000 toys donated and 200 bikes, which was amazing,&#8221; said Ashlea Lee, media chair for the Greensburg Toys for Tots.<\/p>\n<p>Lee said that the Greensburg chapter&#8217;s biggest year in terms of need was 2020, during the pandemic, and she notes that this year&#8217;s need for them was relatively on par with last year.<\/p>\n<p>However, KDKA also spoke briefly over the phone on Wednesday with Jennifer Neilen, the coordinator of Toy for Tots in the Alle-Kiski Valley, who said the chapter saw an increase of over 700 more children hoping for a present from the organization this Christmas.<\/p>\n<p>But both Neilen in Alle-Kiski and Lee in Greensburg said they are fortunate to meet the demand of their communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s nice to see that it continues to go on every year and that you see a lot of the same people come back and volunteer every year, which is great, and then you see them bring their kids,&#8221; Lee said. &#8220;Because with any volunteer organization, we need the youth. We need youth for the future to keep these kinds of things going because there will always be a need. And so there will always be a need for those who donate and for those who volunteer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Toys for Tots does great work during the holiday season, but it accepts donations throughout the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n        More from CBS News\n      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christmas is a time when many kids look forward to getting toys, but 2025 was a year that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74,16849,5910],"class_list":["post-69928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-toys-for-tots","tag-westmoreland-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}