Merced County sheriff’s deputies, community members donate gifts to children

About 2,000 children who might not have received any gifts this holiday season were greeted by community members and Merced County sheriff’s deputies over a four-day period to deliver presents.

When a 6-year-old boy opened the door to find Lt. Corey Gibson, he instantly started smiling and tears streamed down his cheeks, according to Sgt. Delray Shelton.

“There’s my soldier I knew you were coming,” Shelton said the boy told Gibson.

The youngster ran up to Gibson and hugged him.

For the past 15 years, the Sheriff’s Office has worked with community members and organizations to collect toys for less-fortunate children. For the past few years, the project “morphed into something huge,” Shelton said, and is now called Operation Holiday Toy Drive.

With the help of Charlene Jones from the Human Services Agency in Merced, Shelton said, deputies went through about 1,500 applications to find children and families who could use gifts for the holidays.

“All year long, they make efforts to collect toys,” Shelton said.

Every foster child on the Merced County roster also is given a toy.

The children who are picked, Shelton said, wouldn’t have anything else to open on Christmas if not for the “effort, time and talent” of individuals in the community to help the Sheriff’s Office make the toy drive possible.

The toys are either donated by people in the community, Shelton said, or money is donated and raised to buy toys.

“We’re blessed by them so that we can be a blessing,” he said. “Most of these families, when we walk in, have nothing.”

The Merced County Food Bank donates turkeys and boxes of food for families, Shelton said, to make sure nobody goes hungry over the holidays.

Shelton said Merced Chevrolet donated two truckloads filled with toys and that El Portal Imaging center also gave donations. The HATE Project in Merced, a nonprofit aiming to support education services and communities through donations, gave the Sheriff’s Office $12,000 for toys and other items for the program.

A group of retired individuals in Merced came together to donate gift cards from Target, movie theaters and the mall, Shelton said. California Forensic Medical Group gave children clothes and toys also.

“There’s a pocket in our community that are a little less fortunate that need a hand up, not a hand out,” Shelton said. “These type of projects reinstate the meaning of the holidays and Christmas spirit.”

Along with regulating crime around the county, Shelton said, it is also the department’s responsibility to help the community in all matters such as these.

“It’s important for us to do,” he said. “We do it because we truly want to.”

This story was originally published January 2, 2017 at 3:39 PM with the headline "Merced County sheriff’s deputies, community members donate gifts to children."