We’re excited! We are inside of 2 weeks to the Frequent Traveler Toys for Tots Happy Hour! This is a great opportunity to give back, and as I’ll show in this post, to earn a few miles! 

Toys for Tots Happy Hour Info

The event will be in Arlington, VA, like last year, it will be at Bar Bao, as they were incredible last year and welcoming us for a repeat! Details below:

Bar Bao 
3100 Clarendon Blvd
Clarendon Metro Station
Arlington, VA 22201

The event will be 6 December, 6-9pm. We’ll have representation from the US Marine Corp to accept the toys (and our appreciation for their service). We’ll have friends, fellowship, and plenty of great time to talk travel!

Just so we have an idea of how many folks to expect, please register

We are asking that you bring a toy for a child that might otherwise not have a toy underneath their tree. 

What Toys to Get?

Based on information from Toys for Tots, here are some guidelines:

Toys for Tots does not publish a list of appropriate toys to donate.  If such a list were created, most would follow it, resulting in a limited selection of items to distribute in each community.   We would rather our donors consider what might be an appropriate gift for their own child/relative, purchase the item, and donate to Toys for Tots.

Pre-teen/teens are groups for which shopping is especially difficult.  Do you have any ideas?

The Foundation does purchase supplemental toys/gifts for our campaign sites and focuses on these age groups.  In the past, items purchased for these groups have included, but are not limited to:  sporting equipment/bags/balls; books, backpacks, cosmetics, purses, watch/wallet gift sets, bath gift sets, board games, radio control cars/trucks, hand-held electronics, skateboards/helmets, curling irons, hair straighteners, and hair dryers.

Also, above all else, please do not plan to donate realistic looking weapons or gifts with food, they will not be distributed. 

Suggestions giving the Black Friday Deals

There are a ton of fantastic deals out there for Black Friday! Here are just a few suggestions:

JCPenney (usually 5x or better between Rakuten/MR’s, and lower for airline portals) has 25% off all Frozen related toys on Black Friday. You can check out the add here. 

Kohls always offers $15 Kohls Cash for every $50 spend, which is great, that opens up a lot of opportunities to buy things you might already be buying and leave the Kohls Cash for toys for Tots. They’ve got a pretty great Black Friday advertisement

• Monopoly and other board games are 50% off
•  Mr Potato Sup Spud ($19.99, reg $39.99)
• Vtech Pull and Discover Activity Elephant ($19.99, reg 29.99)
• Remote Controlled Vehicles ($19.99, reg $34.99-39.99)
• 30% off on select Lego

Walmart is 5% Cashback (or Membership Rewards) for Toys:

Target will invariably have wonderful deals as well.

Wrapping Up

There’s a lot of great options out there for buying toys in support of Toys for Tots. I sincerely hope you’ll be able to make it out for the Toys for Tots Happy Hour. As in past years, we’ll have a couple of US Marines attending, and I am certain this will be a fantastic event! I really hope you can make it!!