Mon Valley’s ‘Santa’ to retire
By ERIC SEIVERLING
eseiverling@yourmvi.com
For many children throughout the Mon Valley, Santa Claus has just left the building.
After a 31-year tenure as coordinator for the Mon Valley Leathernecks’ Toys for Tots campaign, Donora resident Wally Fronzaglio has announced his retirement from the toy drive that provided smiles and cheer to kids during the holidays.
His last day as coordinator for the campaign will be Jan. 15.
“It’s time for me to step aside,” Fronzaglio said. “I’m getting up there with age. I’m wore out. I’m tired. I’m going to be 82 soon. It’s time for me to step aside and let someone younger take over.”
Fronzaglio was a retired truck driver in 1989 when he agreed to coordinate the Mon Valley Leathernecks’ toy drive.
Back then, the Leathernecks ran their own Christmas toy drive independent of Toys for Tots. In 1992, the group signed on with the U.S. Marines’ corporate program in Quantico, Va.
During a typical Christmas season, more than 100 donation boxes are placed throughout the Mon Valley. The boxes are filled with enough toys that a 45-foot-long trailer is needed to haul them to the Donora Fire Hall.
Fronzaglio said after the toys were handed out to children for the annual Toys for Tots event, he always had some toys remaining that he kept on hand.
“I never had a Christmas with my own family,” he said. “I would do this right up to Christmas Day. For some reason, people would miss the program. They’d come over to my house and I would hand out toys out of my van. Everybody in Donora knows my phone number.”
It’s not just during the holidays that Fronzaglio and his fellow Leathernecks spread cheer and laughter.
Fronzaglio recalled one summer 15 years ago when a woman in critical condition with brain cancer at Monongahela Valley Hospital wanted to give her 5-year-old son a Christmas in July.
“We gave her and her son a Christmas party and gave her son gifts,” Fronzaglio remembered. “Four days later, she passed away. It was just amazing we were able to do that for her. Stuff like that made it wonderful.”
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