The Marines have their annual Toys for Tots program where toys are donated to needy families at Christmas time.
They might not be the almighty Marines, but the annual Stocks for Tots,  each December here, does a pretty darn good job of  getting toys to abused children in the Iredell County (N.C.) area and North Carolina, through the SCAN (Stop Child Abuse Now) program.
Don Miller, who just stepped down as president of Penske Racing South, got Stocks for Tots up and running in 1989 at the National Guard Armory here as a way for the stock car racing community to get involved in helping needy children and families.
For the next 16 years, Stocks for Tots was held at the Lakeside Business Park, the home of numerous racing teams, here.
Two years ago it was moved to the Charles Mack Citizen Center here on Main Street where it was held Dec. 12.
It doesn’t seem that long ago when the late Angela Crawford, Judy Collins, Deb Williams and yours truly were meeting, along with others, three-four times a month for a couple of months to get that first Stocks for Tots up and running.
It was a labor of love and that’s what it was been since.
It had a lot more air about Christmas and its purpose than the 19th annual event had the other night. It was too spread out and people attending were crowded into tight spaces.
It’s just not right that those legend racing stars like Dick May, Jabe Thomas, Travis Tiller, Tiger Tom Pistone and Ken Ragan had to be separated from the other drivers. It’s like the legends are a bunch of cast outs, not the ones who helped to get NASCAR stock-car racing off and running like they did. Without those people, there wouldn’t be any Kurt Busches or Jeff Gordons of today.
If it continues, it needs to be back at Lakeside Business Park and, then, make sure the race teams that are still located in the business park get involved, putting up Christmas lights and decorations and helping to host the event.
Done right, with some organization, Stocks for Tots can become a guiding light to Christmas events in the area.
Miller, who was awarded the Home Depot’s first humanitarian award earlier this month, is too involved to realize and know the organization behind Stocks for Tots is very lax and non-caring, at times.
There needs to be some community amnesties in Stocks for Tots.
Over the years, more than $400,000 and countless number of toys have been raised and donated to the SCAN families.
That’s not a paltry sum, by any means.
“I get a little concerned every year that it’s not going to be as good as it was the year before or as good as it ought to be,” Miller, who didn’t have time to talk to the media during the event, said beforehand. “But somehow, it always comes off.”
It almost didn’t this time, though.
Very few people connected with the event knew where anything was or what was transpiring, when or where.
That’s not the way to keep something going that’s been so successful previously.
Miller says that now that he’s retired from Penske Racing, he’ll have more time to spend about making future editions of Stocks for Tots better.
Let’s hope it’s not too late to make that come true.
It would be a shame to see Stocks for Tots  suffer.
All it needs are a few good men to rival the Marines for Toys for Tots.