Photos By Sandra Small Photographer.
La Mesa Chamber members, friends and sponsors came together on December 5th to celebrate our strength and our strong belief in giving – by collecting and distributing toys and items to military families living in La Mesa. This is the 2nd year that we have assisted these children and their families. We are honored to partner with the following sponsors who helped make this happen: BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse, Barnes & Noble – Grossmont, Cali Comfort & BBQ, Carl Burger Dodge Chrysler Jeep RAM World, EDCO, Fonseca Design Shop, Grossmont Center, Kappa Surveying & Engineering, Kirk Paving, Inc., Jerry Lester, Riviera Supper Club, Stoney’s Kids Legacy, The Regal Bar and Valley Farm Market.
We are proud to announce that we collected a total of 1,383 toys and items for these children and were also able to purchase $1,400 worth of Target gift cards for their holidays. A special thank you to Teresa McClatchy and her team at Barnes & Noble who sold/donated 710 books to the public through our one month “Stuff the Jeep” portion of this project and made a cash donation too! Thank you! We also wish to thank Kyle Nyswonger and the team at Carl Burger Dodge Chrysler Jeep RAM World who allowed one of their Jeep’s to be staged in Grossmont Center for this campaign – obviously, without a Jeep, we could NOT have done our “Stuff the Jeep” campaign! So, thank you Kyle and Carl Burger for everything!
The celebration at BJ’s was a loud and festive celebration of the completion of our toy drive, by allowing members and guests to bring an unwrapped toy to the party for our military children. The toys just kept stacking up! The sponsored beverages flowed and Braxton Mahon and his team did a wonderful job of keeping the platters filled with piping hot pizzas, pasta dishes and chilled salads. Thanks to everyone who joined us and donated toys at the party and to those who made a financial investment and partnered with us on this special holiday project!