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Agency fills in for Marines in Toys for Tots program

Friday, December 13, 2002

By Torsten Ove, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

The popular image of the Internal Revenue Service is that it only takes away, but yesterday the agency was giving back.

	Jean Tripp, left background, and Jamie Ball join other employees of the local IRS Criminal Investigations office as they squeeze into the elevator with a load toys collected for the Toys for Tots campaign yesterday. The toys were bound for the North Versailles distribution center. (Pam Panchak, Post-Gazette)

The Criminal Investigation Division, tackling a job the U.S. Marine Corps normally handles, collected barrels full of new toys bought by IRS employees to be donated to the Marines' Toys for Tots program.

Two IRS special agents, Jamie Ball and Carrie Rodgers, gathered the toys donated at IRS offices in Liberty Center and the Federal Building, both Downtown, and displayed them in Room 1019 at the Federal Building.

There were Tonka trucks and Matchbox cars, Monopoly and Candyland games, all brand new.

"We have 10 barrels overflowing with toys," said Rodgers. "We did really well this year."

She and Ball later packed the toys into a van to drive to a warehouse in North Versailles, where the Marines will distribute them to poor children.

"I would love to be there to see the kids' faces when they come in," said Ball.

Most years, the Marines do all the toy collecting.

But this year the Corps has been shorthanded because of the war on terror, and many Marines are overseas with other military units. Rodgers' husband Dan, in fact, is a former Marine who just returned from duty in the Middle East as a member of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard. He used to collect for Toys for Tots.

With fewer Marines around this year, the IRS agreed to take care of collecting from its own offices. It's no small job. The agency has 800 employees in Western Pennsylvania and is the largest employer in the Federal Building, so that means lots of toys.

Torsten Ove can be reached at tove@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2620.