General Hospital has once again teamed up with Toys for Tots Foundation to bring holiday happiness to kids who might otherwise not get Christmas presents this year.
The ABC soap started the partnership tradition years ago, and this time they've included Feeding America to help bring food to families in need, as well.
As shown on the show's official Facebook page, GH executive producer Frank Valentini and stars Steve Burton (Jason Morgan), Kirsten Storms (Maxie Jones), Dominic Zamprogna (Dante Falconeri), Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis Davis), Risa Dorken (Amy Driscoll), Donnell Turner (Curtis Ashford), Vinessa Antoine (Jordan Ashford), William deVry (Julian Jerome), and Hayley Erin (Kiki Jerome) gathered outside the show's studio to meet with Marines and donate the toys they've collected.
As stated on the organization's website, the mission of the U. S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program is to collect new, unwrapped toys during October, November, and December each year, and distribute those toys as Christmas gifts to less fortunate children in the community in which the campaign is conducted. Founded in 1947 by Major Bill Hendricks, the foundation started with the first gift of a handmade doll and has since gone on to include millions of toys of all sorts given out to children across the country each year.
GH has been helping promote the organization, with a scene this year that showed Carly (Wright) dropping off a donation at the hospital and a curious Franco (Roger Howarth) rummaging around in the box to see what goodies had been left behind.
Feeding America has responded to the hunger crisis in America for the past 35 years by providing food to people in need through a nationwide network of food banks. As the organization's website states, the concept of food banking was developed by John van Hengel in Phoenix, AZ, in the late 1960s. Van Hengel, a retired businessman, had been volunteering at a soup kitchen trying to find food to serve the hungry. One day, he met a desperate mother who regularly rummaged through grocery store garbage bins to find food for her children. She suggested that there should be a place where, instead of being thrown out, discarded food could be stored for people to pick up -- similar to the way "banks" store money for future use. With that, an industry was born.
For more information on GH's efforts to help give every American family a happy Christmas, check out the show's official Facebook page. And to find out how you can help, check out Disney's Be Inspired.
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