Woodworkers Make Toys for Needy Children

Woodworker Mac Pace, 76, pointed out the drilled holes and small pieces in a toy bulldozer.

“This was a little stinker,” said Pace, a Winnetka resident who will soon become the president of the San Fernando Valley Woodworkers.

“It looks simple, but there was a lot of work on that.”

Nonetheless, association members made 100 of the bulldozers to be given away this holiday season.

Last week, 32 of them were given to children at a Midwestern Indian reservation.

The rest will be donated to several local charities, including the Los Angeles Fire Department’s Toys for the Needy program.

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“It’s almost like giving a child an heirloom,” said Arron Latt, the group’s current president.

“Most of what you buy in a store is plastic and falls apart. This is something we hope the children will pass along to their children.”

The association has made the toys every holiday season since 1993, when they produced a toy stake truck carrying a load of lumber.

In other years they have made tractor-trailers and airplanes.

The group held a toy-building contest in November during which its members created 15 toys, such as a rocking horse, trucks, locomotives and a baby crib.

All of these toys were donated to Northridge Hospital Medical Center.