Maui Zipline Swings into Holiday Spirit

By Wendy Osher

Holiday photo by Wendy Osher.

With the holidays on the horizon, local companies are finding ways to spread the holiday spirit beyond their businesses.

Maui Zipline at the Maui Tropical Plantation is serving this year as a toy drop off location for the Maui-based Toys for Tots campaign, and is also offering special incentives for customers who donate toys or funds through December 17, 2011.

“We get to spend all year spreading joy and sharing adventures with our guests of all ages, and we wanted to be able to bring the joy of Christmas to local keiki who may not be so fortunate,” said Judy Truglia, manager at Maui Zipline Company.

“We thought this was a perfect opportunity to invite our island’s visitors and local residents to help support Toys for Tots this season,” she said.

Maui Zipline identified the need for more toy drop off locations and more local support on Maui.  Each toy collected will remain in Maui County and will be distributed directly to help Hawaii’s local children on Maui, Molokai and Lanai.

“We are excited to provide this outlet for toy donation, and thrilled to be directly affecting the holidays of children on our islands,” said Truglia.

The Toys for Tots program is a nation-wide campaign, carried out by the US Marine Corps each year.  Since there is no Marine outpost on Maui, Marines partner with the community and island businesses to carry out their campaign each year.

Toys for Tots shopping mission from annual campaign. File photo by Wendy Osher.

MinitStop is also a annual sponsors of the Toys For Tots campaign, hosting toy drives statewide, and drop off sites on island.

Another annual toy drive event is the popular Maui Street Bikers Union Hawaii (SBU) Christmas Toy Run and Bikers’ Parade, happening on Sunday, December 18, 2011.  Bikers will gather toys with the help of the Salvation Army; then parade from Kahului to Lahaina and back, to wrap up the event with a fundraising party.

“We hope that our group efforts will add to the number of toys we are able to collect on Maui, and help even more families,” said Truglia.

“Our goal this year is to be sure that no child in our county is disappointed on Christmas,” she said.