Just $2,000. That’s all the Suffolk News-Herald Cheer Fund lacks from reaching its $35,000 goal for the 2013 fundraising season.

With only 10 days remaining in the current fiscal year, the Cheer Fund is making a final push to reach its goal. The fact that we’re so close to the goal is a testament to the great generosity of the people of Suffolk, who have supported our effort to raise money to support Toys for Tots in Suffolk for decades.

This year, according to Frank Rawls, who leads the Cheer Fund’s volunteer board of directors, Toys for Tots in Suffolk helped put toys under the Christmas tree for about 1,000 more children than had been served by the program the previous year.

Many of those toys were donated in dozens of collection efforts around Suffolk during the weeks before Christmas, but the money donated to the Cheer Fund goes much further than individual toys, and it ensured that thousands of needy children would receive toys that wouldn’t otherwise have been available.

Special arrangements with toy distributors mean that Toys for Tots can buy as many as three toys for the same price the average person pays for one, according to John Woleben, Suffolk’s Toys for Tots coordinator.

The monetary donations have been both large and small — from a few dollars to thousands of dollars — and all of those donations have been important to the effort.

The money raised in this year’s drive will help buy toys for children next Christmas. That might seem like a long time from now, but the Toys for Tots work begins again in just a couple of months, and the plans that are made will depend heavily on the amount of money that has been raised in this year’s effort. The number of children served by the program has been steadily rising, and there is reason to believe it will continue to do so. Failing to meet the goal could mean some Suffolk children would be left out of the distribution.

We are extremely thankful for those who have contributed, whether they’ve done so with monetary contributions or donations of toys. If you’ve been thinking of making a donation, now is the time.

To donate, send a check to the Cheer Fund to P.O. Box 1220, Suffolk, VA 23439 or bring it by our office at 130 S. Saratoga St. For more information about the Cheer Fund, call 934-9616.