Video: TMMMS Team Members Help Salvation Army And ‘Sharing At Christmas’ Initiative

BLUE SPRINGS, MISS. (WCBI) – Team members at Toyota’s Blue Springs plant are making Christmas brighter for needy families throughout our viewing area.

As WCBI’s Allie Martin reports, two charities collected cash, and toys that will not only help those less fortunate, but also allows the auto maker to give back to the community.

A handful of team members took a quick break from the assembly line and helped load the Salvation Army’s truck with toys.

For about a month now, the Blue Springs plant has held a toy drive. It is the fourth year the auto maker has collected toys for the Salvation Army.

“Last year we had like, 350 , 360 gifts and we come in today and they’ve got over a thousand and it is just amazing,” said Susan Gilbert, with the Salvation Army.

One thousand 127 toys, to be exact. Along with the toys, Toyota gave the Salvation Army ten thousand dollars, and for the first time, the plant made a donation to a program run by the New Albany Gazette called “Sharing at Christmas.”

That initiative was started 41 years ago by the community newspaper, as a way to get food, and toys to the less fortunate.

Publisher Wayne Mitchell says Toyota has made good on its promise to be a great corporate citizen.

“Toyota has had a good corporate commitment since they came and they are involved in a number of things in Union County and the Gazette certainly appreciates their commitment to adding Sharing at Christmas to their
activities,” Mitchell said.

And for team members, like Derric Morrison, the toy drive and monetary donations are one of the many ways his colleagues can pay their good fortune forward.

“Toyota has really afforded us, good jobs and we just feel it’s the right thing to do to be able to give back when we are so fortunate ourselves, so that’s the only message we share, encourage people to consider, that things are going well for us, let’s try to make them go well for somebody else,” Morrison said.

Morrison and his fellow team members say it’s more than just about making
cars, it is also about improving the community where they live and work.

Toys collected will help supplement the Salvation Army’s “Angel Tree”
program.