SOME TOYBOX FAMILIES HAVE MANY KIDS

When families are on a fixed income, buying clothes and toys for just one child can be difficult enough.

But several of the families who reach out to Toybox at the holiday season have three, four or even five children.

Barbara is a single mother of four children: Alyssa, 3; Allison, 4; Adam, 8; and Andrew, 9.

Barbara stays at home with the youngest children because she cannot afford to pay day care in addition to her monthly living expenses.

The boys have asked Santa Claus to bring them skateboards, race cars and water guns. The girls love Barney and have wished for a menagerie of the purple dinosaur's merchandise.

"Please send my children the things I cannot give them this Christmas," Barbara asked Toybox. "They are good children."

Mary and Ken have seven children.

The family is able to pay the rent, put food on the table and buy clothes for the children, but has virtually nothing left over to buy Christmas presents.

The six girls range in age from 1 to 10. The family's only son, Kitt, is 4 months old.

The children have not asked for anything in particular for Christmas -- the parents say they would be happy with any little gift someone could see fit to give this Christmas.

Wednesday was the cut-off date for accepting Toybox applications. Although about 420 families applied, Toybox must find toys for more than 2,000 children.

Toybox -- a joint project of the Southeast Missourian and the Cape Girardeau Jaycees -- seeks to make Christmas a happier time for families by bringing a little joy into their lives in the form of toys for the children.

In the next few days, Toybox organizers need to fill about 200 orders for toys, many of them for multiple-children families. And although response from the community has been good this year, Jaycees members say more toys will be needed to fill the remaining orders.

New, unwrapped toys may be delivered to the Southeast Missourian, 301 Broadway, or to the following Toybox drop-off spots: West Park Mall, Boatmen's Bank, Capital Bank, Perry Travel Center, Gulliver's Travel Agency, AmeriFirst Bank, Commerce Bank, Farm and Home Savings Association and Mercantile Bank.

Gifts and contributions may be mailed to Toybox Trust, P.O. Box 4, Cape Girardeau, Mo. 63702-0004.

Gifts will be delivered Tuesday by Santa Claus and a team of elves from the Jaycees.

For more information, call Kim McDowell at 335-6611.