Toy Run helps make Christmas brighter for mountain families

[totalmotorcycle]

Toy Run helps make Christmas brighter for mountain families
Monday, December 4, 2006 - by Michael Flynn - Citizen Times - citizen-times.com



ASHEVILLE – Wearing dark sunglasses, a foot-long ponytail and black leather biker gear, Swannanoa’s Brad Lautner makes an unlikely Santa Claus.

But the Swannanoa resident was happy to contribute a Superman action figure at today's Smoky Mountain Toy Run, a motorcycle parade and charity event that benefits the Salvation Army’s Christmas assistance program.

“It’s fun to make somebody happy that you don’t know,” said the first-time participant in the annual event. “It’s something good for the kids – they’ve got to have a Christmas.”

The Toy Run contributions are a key part of the Salvation Army’s efforts to help local families during Christmas, said spokesman Ernest A. Miller, an officer with the group since 1950.

“Almost 8,000 people will receive some direct assistance from the Salvation Army,” Miller said about the group’s Christmas relief work, one of the biggest efforts in Buncombe County.

Because of downtown construction, the route of this year’s Toy Run began near the Innsbruck Mall on Tunnel Road and traveled east on U.S. 70 to Gene Lummus Harley-Davidson in Swannanoa, one of the events sponsors.

For more on this story, see tomorrow's Citizen-Times.