Despite the chill in the air, Danville’s Blue Knights took to their motorcycles for their tenth annual Toys for Tots run on Sunday.
Cancelled Saturday due to the weather, the run started shortly before noon at Thunder Road Harley-Davidson on Riverside Drive, traveled west to Stony Mill Road and north to Mount Cross Road, ending at the Lone Star Steakhouse & Saloon.
“It’s about a 10-mile ride,” Keith Johnson, president of the Blue Knights, said, adding that the ride took about 30 minutes.
“It’s a ride you don’t speed on,” he said, “because the faster you go, the colder it is.”
Riders bring a new, unwrapped toy as their registration fee — or can opt to donate $10 to Toys for Tots instead.
Attendance was down a little from the group’s normal turnout, Johnson said, due to the schedule change, but many members still dropped off gifts and donations before the ride.
At the restaurant, the group of active and retired law enforcement officers warmed up with coffee, soft drinks and chili, donated by Lone Star.
Johnson said toys and donations will be collected until at least Dec. 12 at Thunder Road, by which time the group expects to know when representatives of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program will pick up the toys.
The toys are usually distributed by the Danville Division of Social Services, Johnson said, which tries to distribute toys to children who have not gotten Christmas gifts from other organizations.
Since the drive is still happening, the group doesn’t have totals on how much cash and toys have been collected, but they expect to at least match last years’ toy donations and top the $520 raised.
“We’ll have more than $600 this year,” Johnson said.
Toys and cash donations can still be dropped off at Thunder Road Harley-Davidson, 4960 Riverside Drive, during normal business hours from Tuesday through Saturday.
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