BANGOR – The U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program will collect toys beginning at 7 p.m. Thursday during the University of Maine men’s hockey game at the Alfond Arena.

The campaign drive has provided needy children with toys for the past 53 years during the holiday season. Toys for Tots representatives request that donated toys are unwrapped and new.

Donations also will be accepted from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 16, outside of KB Toys at the Bangor Mall, where U.S. Marines will be on hand.

Donations also are being accepted at the following locations in Bangor: Ames Department Store, Union Street; Studio 2000, Bangor Mall; Oriental Jade Restaurant, Bangor Mall Boulevard; Sweet’s Market, Main Street; the U.S. Marine Corps Recruiting Office, 117 Broadway; and Omega Technical Training, State Street.

The Toys for Tots Program started in 1947 when a wife of a Marine couldn’t find an agency to donate her two handmade cloth dolls. She talked with her husband, Major Bill Hendricks, and with the help of his Los Angeles Marine Corps Reserve unit, they collected and distributed 5,000 toys to needy children that year.

For more information, call Corinne Van Peursem at 947-6795 or Gabriel Rios at 989-2600.

The major’s program was so successful that in 1948 the Marine Corps adopted it and expanded it nationwide as the U.S. Marine Corps Toys for Tots Program. Marines have conducted 53 successful campaigns, collecting and distributing more than 220,000,000 toys.

Marines distribute more than 7 million toys annually to approximately 4 million children each year. The campaign runs until Dec. 22. Up until that time, a new, unwrapped toy may be delivered to any Toys for Tots collection point or to a U.S. Marine Recruiting Office.

Area businesses and business leaders play a key role in the program by allowing U.S. Marines to locate collection boxes in their stores; by providing free warehouse space during October, November and December for the duration of the campaign; for sorting and storing toys; by providing vehicles to collect toys from collection sites; and by sponsoring toy and fund-raising events.