Toys

5K run/walk planned LIBERTY — The 10th annual “Turkey Trot for Tots” 5K run/walk will start at 9 a.m. Saturday in the Pamida parking lot.  Entry fee is $15 per person, and proceeds will benefit the local Toys for Kids program.   All participants will receive a Turkey Trot T-shirt, and trophies will be awarded to the winners in each age group. For more information or to register, call Back n Body Chiropractic Center at (606) 787-2800. Meetings Danville-Boyle County Airport Board — 7 p.m. today at the airport.

You would have thought it was Toys R Us from the looks of it. Or maybe the North Pole. Elves (Flora Shelby and a friend) began wrapping toys at 9 in the morning at Emmanuel Episcopal Church yesterday. At 1:30, they were still going at it. That's what happens when 1,400 families are coming through a door to get Christmas gifts for their children. Although many churches donated pre-wrapped gifts, bunches more poured in yesterday morning as Operation Happiness' held its annual Day of Giving.

Operation Happiness organizers and volunteers will be hard at work this week, packing food boxes, sorting coats and gloves, and wrapping toys in preparation for the program's big "Day of Giving" this Thursday. "Today is the first day of a lot of the work that will go on," said Darren Diguette, who co-chairs the program with Community Services Director Judy Crowe. Volunteers will start packing boxes on Wednesday for 1,400 Clark County families, and Diguette said more help is needed.

Some are seniors. Some are families with two working parents and several kids. Some are just single adults struggling on their own. There really isn't a typical type of person who benefits from Operation Happiness, except that they all need help making the Christmas season special. Now in its 37th year of giving, Operation Happiness kicked off its annual collection drive Monday with expectations of helping about 1,500 families this year by passing out food, clothing and toys. "The one thing we try to stress to folks is that there may be folks that have come to Operation Happiness for the last eight years in a row, but there may also be folks that this is that one time they need help," said Darren Diguette, who is co-chairing the program this year with Community Services Director Judy Crowe.

Plays geared toward different ages will be performed at the Pioneer Playhouse indoor stage this weekend. For the younger crowd is "Cinder-Elfa," a holiday-ized version of the timeless story of Cinderella, set to music and with all the principal characters intact ? except as elves. Elf-Tidings (Caroline Bugg) spreads the news throughout the village that Santa is holding a contest for the elf who creates the greatest gift for the children of the world. The Wicked Step-Elf Sisters, Drizz-Elfa and Bland-Elfa (Alden Baird and Taylor Whitsell)

Santa's workshop appears to have moved to 519 South Fourth St., and Capt. Zach Bell and his wife Shelly have taken on some major elf-like responsibilities. The gym at the Salvation Army office headquarters is packed with hundreds of bags, each with their own case number and child identification tag. Close to 100 shiny new bikes are parked next to each other, each of them test driven by the Bell's 3-year old daughter, Emma. "It took her the first year to realize that all these toys weren't for her," said Shelly Bell.

In September 1987, Ronald Reagan was president of the United States and the No. 1 pop song was the late Whitney Houston's “Didn't We Almost Have It All.” Also in September 1987, Jessamine County's Clay Miller answered a newspaper ad to purchase a crab-eating macaque - Gizmo - for his future wife, April Truitt. That purchase and the subsequent research that followed gave birth to the Jessamine County-based Primate Rescue Center. PRC sits on 35 acres of land near Wilmore.

Often, the quiet, day-to-day work of Congress is overshadowed by the war in Iraq and much-discussed issues like immigration and children's health care. Many of the bills passed by Congress have a positive impact on significant numbers of Americans but are frequently overlooked. One example is a package of legislation that the House of Representatives passed several weeks ago to improve child safety. We see recall after recall of children's toys and other products, and Americans might wonder what Congress is doing to combat this growing problem.

Organizers of Operation Happiness need some help from the community in order to make Christmas a little nicer for about 1,400 needy families. Operation Happiness has been a Clark County tradition for more than 40 years, and provides boxes of food containing items needed to prepare a traditional Christmas dinner, toys, coats, gloves and other items for the families. While most of the toys and clothing are donated by individuals, community groups and churches, the food for the boxes is purchased from a local store and costs about $50,000.