Dozens of Santa's local elves are gathering at Salem Bible Fellowship Church this week to ensure that the area's neediest children have gifts for Christmas.

The Schuylkill-Carbon Marine Corps League's Toys for Tots campaign will culminate this Saturday when more than 300 families from Carbon County and Tamaqua pick up their children's toys at the Lehighton church. Altogether, roughly 800 children were expected to register for the program."Without this program, most of these children might not have a Christmas," said Cheryl Laub, the Schuylkill-Carbon Marine Corps League's Toys for Tots coordinator.By Saturday, every child's gifts will be neatly bagged and sorted for their family to pick up. But before those families can gather their toys, volunteers must first sort through thousands of donated items, bagging them for each family.They spent several hours prepping the church for the event, and will dedicate at least two hours each night to sorting toys by gender and age and then into family bags. Each family's demographics (the age and gender of children) is listed on a card, allowing volunteers to choose appropriate gifts for each child.Thanks to the generosity of local donations, each child will receive several toys."We want to thank the whole community for helping this year. We had a great year, with lots of donations," Laub said, noting that people offered both gifts and monetary donations and their time to make the local project a success.This is the fifth year that Salem Bible Fellowship Church has hosted Toys for Tots. The church opens its doors for three weekends in November and December to register families for the program, and again for an entire week in December to sort, bag and distribute toys to these families. A good number of church members also volunteer to help throughout the process."We're really thankful to Pastor Bob (Johnson) and Salem Bible Fellowship for all of their help," Laub said.Other volunteers on site included Marine Corps League members and family, local students, the Black Diamond Parrothead Club and local business owners and employees."A lot of the people who have boxes in their business, they want to help," she said.While registration to receive a toy has ended, the Marine Corps will continue to accept toys through midweek. Volunteers will do one last check of local Toys for Tots boxes on Wednesday or Thursday. These boxes are located in a number of local businesses, retail stores and schools throughout Carbon County and Tamaqua.