Staff from Mazda-Toyota Manufacturing loaded up a truck with Christmas goodies Monday morning and delivered them to the Limestone County Child Advocacy Center. MTM held a toy drive that saw a friendly competition among departments result in a magical Christmas morning for some Limestone County children.

External Affairs Specialist for MTM Jessica Luther, “We’ve now done this toy drive two years in a row for the Limestone County Child Advocacy Center as well as a food bank of North Alabama partnership we do for Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

MTM chose the Limestone County Child Advocacy Center in hopes of making a better community connection within the county the plant is located.

“When we heard more about their mission and their continuous need for toys and things to brighten the experience of the children they see, it just seemed like a great mission for our team to get behind. Everyone who became aware of it was really inspired to give,” Luther said.

MTM felt that the toy drive mission would be an opportunity for them to reflect the diverse work force of 3,700 by bringing a unifying mission. The toy drive also had a competitive component by seeing which shop/departments at MTM would donate the most toys.

The Assembly Shop at MTM donated 1,391 toys and containers of Play-Doh and will bring home this year’s bragging rights for the winning shop.

“There’s a lot of Play-Doh and manipulatives and things that keep children busy. It’s not so much your normal toy drive where there’s bikes and games. We really tried to focus on toys that they said they would use the most of which is stuffed animals, comfort toys, and manipulatives,” Luther said.

The toys will be distributed to the families and children throughout Limestone County that utilize the services of the Limestone County Child Advocacy Center.