Iowa City Salvation Army sees surplus of toy donations and volunteers

IOWA CITY - An overall abundance forced the Iowa City branch of the Salvation Army to turn away two groups of volunteers this year, and invite more families to receive toys there were so many.

According to Lia Pontarelli, director of development and communications for the Iowa City Salvation Army, at least two times as many do-gooders volunteered for the annual toy drive, which included an additional walk-in period Wednesday for unregistered families.

"[Thursday morning] this room was stuffed," Pontarelli said of the state of the large warehouse space last week, at 1060 Cross Park Ave., where stockpiles of dolls, board games, puzzles, action figures, coloring books and teddy bears were stashed until gift distribution began Tuesday.

Pontarelli said 90 volunteers came to help sort toys and package them for each family Thursday, where 1,383 children preregistered (560 families)  to receive a bag of toys.

She noted the local organization always tries to have leftover gifts, but this year showed an impressive response from Johnson County, and estimated between 100 and 200 extra children (60 total families) were able to register for a gift bag because of the surplus.

"We've had more toys and everything than we could've imagined," Pontarelli said, noting the corps continued to see plenty of volunteers come through to help out this week as well.

Since Pontarelli joined the team in June, she said one of her aims was to make the corps more visible in Iowa City and cited social media as a contributing factor to spreading the word for the drive.

But steadfast veteran members also appeared to be a large driving force of the season.

"I can see the tops of the tables now," remarked Jacki Brennan, a head Toy Drive volunteer, pleased with how nice it was to see that many of the thousands of toys had been unloaded and donated.

City High student Sage Dolash-Hauser, 16, is in his eleventh year volunteering for drive, which he said he enjoys because he likes to help people and see them happy because of it.

"It's just part of Christmas," he said.