It’s the 8th Annual Hometown Heroes Toy Drive! AZTV 7 and Desert Financial Credit Union have teamed up with Valley of the Sun United Way, along with local area businesses, to help bring the joy of the holidays to families throughout Arizona. aztv.com/hometownheroes
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00:00 It is starting to look like Christmas around Channel 7 as we are kicking off our Desert
00:04 Financial Credit Union Hometown Heroes Toy Drive and here to make it official is our owner,
00:09 President and Den Mom, Ms. Lynn London. How are you? Wonderful. Here we are. It's that time of
00:15 year again already. That's right. We got our hot coke all ready. We're excited because it's a time
00:20 that we, the second time we give back to the community, even though we do it all year round,
00:24 but we have our big, of course, back to school drive that we do and now the holiday drive,
00:30 which is so important. And I love when we go back to a little history about this and probably you're
00:34 like, "Oh my goodness, we talk about this so much." But for those who are new viewers,
00:37 we have to mention this all started upstairs with the London company and everything.
00:42 Right. Well, we love living in Arizona and we're so fortunate to live here. And a lot of us,
00:50 this is a place where we really can thrive, but there's always people that are in need also,
00:54 and it can be any of us that are in need in any given year. And so the associates from the
01:00 insurance company decided that they wanted to get together and help out some families and
01:04 got this started quite some time ago now. Yeah. And what's really, I love here is that we have
01:10 competition on who can bring in the most toys, who can give. And even now our viewers get a big part
01:15 of that too, as we start and we know they'll be out there shopping and stuff and we make it very
01:20 easy for them. We have a page on our website and everything. But Lynn, we go back and talk about
01:24 how we were having Christmas. And I know you always talk about the story where you had a single mom
01:31 working very hard, raising the kids, but then Christmas time was a time when
01:36 you didn't have the opportunity to have a wonderful Christmas always.
01:40 Well, I do remember when my mom got us kids around and said, "Christmas is going to be a
01:49 little hard this year." And I was just a little girl. And you know, Brad, it's not about missing
01:58 out on a toy. It's about missing out on someone saying, "I see you and I care about you." But
02:04 that year, my mom was wrong and the community did come alongside my family. And we did have
02:11 a wonderful Christmas that year. So I'm really grateful for that.
02:14 Yeah. And that's why we do this is because we know how important our community out there.
02:19 From here in the Valley to up north in the Prescott area and even further up in the Flagstaff.
02:24 And getting the companies who team up with us is amazing. Desert Financial Credit Union,
02:29 London, of course, insurance comes with us, which is amazing. And all the smaller partners. So it's
02:35 a big community that comes together to make sure that the kids out there and the families know
02:40 that they're seen through the holidays. It's a really fun time when everybody
02:47 participates in whatever way they're able to and comes together. And I think it really increases
02:52 the joy that all of us have in the holiday season to be able to share.
02:55 Yeah. And our partners have a chance to go out sometimes with us to see who we give the toys to,
03:00 to our first responders, to our military families, because we have a big Christmas party with
03:07 Helping Hands for Freedom, which is awesome. And it's kind of nice that they also get involved,
03:12 but then they come back the second year and go, "We're going to do more." But we know this year
03:16 could be strapped for some people. So we do need your help out there so we can help out and do more
03:21 for families. Right, right. There's a lot of ways to participate and we'll be talking about them for
03:26 the next while here, right? Yeah. So let me ask you as you've gotten older and as we both have
03:34 gotten older. I've gotten what? Younger, younger. So, and you know, you have a family and stuff.
03:39 What's your favorite joy, of course, when you have a Christmas time?
03:44 Well, you know, Christmas is really the time when we can reconnect with each other and we
03:50 have a chance to just slow down for a minute, spend some time together. And again, the gifts
03:55 are just a symbol of exchanging among each other and spending time and loving on each other.
04:01 That's mine too, being able to just, as you said, reconnect. And that's what we're going to be doing
04:04 here with this toy drive, reconnecting with some of the families that we've helped and reconnecting
04:09 with new families. And you can too by easily going to aztv.com/hometownheroes toy drive. I believe,
04:16 I think it's on there, right? Yes, there is. And we will have, there it is, hometown heroes. There
04:21 it is. I had to make sure so which is on there, which is great for everybody to participate. And
04:26 we'll be doing more. Thank you. Beautiful. Thanks, Brad. It's a privilege. Stick around.
04:30 We have more of the Arizona Daily Mix coming up after this.
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