That’s approximately how many children the Suffolk Toys for Tots program serves each year by providing them with quality toys. This year, the bill for those toys will total about $50,000.

The money, of course, does not materialize out of thin air. It comes from you. Your donation to the Suffolk Cheer Fund is a wonderful opportunity to give something back to your community. There are few better causes than making sure a child has a merry Christmas. We want to make sure every child’s face in Suffolk lights up this year.

We realize that national and international disasters in the past year have caused funding for some charities to fall short of their goals. We can’t let that happen to the Cheer Fund, and we’re confident you will come through again.

The Cheer Funds’ roots in our community stretch back as far as anyone can remember. For more than 40 years, the Cheer Fund has been dedicated to funding Toys for Tots. That’s a long record of working for our community and over that period, every cent donated to the Cheer Fund has stayed in Suffolk to benefit Suffolk children.

But the Cheer Fund/Toys for Tots is more than just money. It’s dozens of volunteers who devote countless hours raising money, buying and inventorying toys, dressing dolls and making deliveries; it’s entire companies that hold employee drives to raise money and buy toys; it’s a true communitywide effort and every one of us in The Great 430 has a hand in it.

As Billy Chorey, who donated $1,000 to kick off this year’s campaign stated in a story on today’s front page, “I’ve always seen the Cheer Fund as being the local fund. This is kind of our thing in Suffolk.”

News-Herald readers will be reading a lot about the Cheer Fund between now and the time we surpass our $45,000 goal. Help make “our thing” a huge success in 2005.

Checks should be made payable to the Cheer Fund and mailed to: Cheer Fund, c/o Suffolk News-Herald, P.O. Box 1220, Suffolk, Va. 23434. Clubs or organizations wishing to make donations and challenge others to match should contact News-Herald Managing Editor Douglas Grant at 934-9603 to arrange to receive publicity for their good work.