Griz creates toy program for kids

UM senior Chris Orwig had a pretty hectic schedule in 2005. Orwig majors in organizational communications at the University, has started with the Grizzly football team the past two years and lettered for four years. He works as a fly fishing guide. But when you talk with Orwig, you won’t hear much about all of this. What he is most interested in is the Griz for Kids program, which collects toys for nonprofits to distribute to children in the Missoula community and surrounding areas.

Orwig grew up in Fairway, Kan., where he was involved in a similar program that served underprivileged children in the Kansas City area.

“That experience stayed with me,” he said. “It inspired me to get something else going to help kids.”

That something else became Griz for Kids.

“I thought, ‘How many other opportunities do you have to get more than 20,000 people together in one place on a Saturday afternoon in Missoula than a Griz football game?’” Orwig said. “My plan was to collect toys during at least one Griz game this season.”

He approached UM head football coach Bobby Hauck and the UM Intercollegiate Athletics program directors, who said they thought the program was a great idea. Then he got a boost from communication studies Associate Professor Greg Larson, who allowed him to earn college credit for his Griz for Kids program.

So, by the beginning of March, Orwig had hatched a plan to make his idea work. Now all he needed, he said, was a media connection. That’s where Sheila Callahan, general manager of Missoula’s KMSO-FM radio station, came into the picture.

“I met Sheila through a random call to a local nonprofit one day when I was trying to figure out how to proceed with my plan for Griz for Kids,” Orwig said. “They put me in touch with her because she was instrumental in the Mountain of Giving program at the station.”

The radio station’s Mountain of Giving program is one of Missoula’s largest holiday toy drives.
The 2005 collection event for the Griz for Kids program was scheduled for the UM-Portland State game last October. People were asked to bring toys to the game and to donate them at various campus collection points.

“We had a huge game that day,” Orwig said. “I was in the locker room when someone said there was a woman outside who really wanted to talk to me before the game. I went out, and there was Sheila Callahan with a big grin on her face. ‘You’re never going to believe this,’” she said.

The news that Callahan shared with Orwig that morning was that at only one collection point — at the south end of the Van Buren footbridge — they had unloaded a 70-gallon trash can full of donated toys at least 10 times — and it was only 11 a.m. The game didn’t start until 1 p.m.

“That news and the fact that we beat Portland State that day were major highs for me,” Orwig said.

The Griz for Kids program collected an estimated $20,000 worth of toys to distribute and $3,000 in cash donations this year. Families who applied through area nonprofits used vouchers to shop for the toys at a “store” set up in a Missoula location, Orwig said. That way, he said, kids get something they want, and they won’t be left out during the holidays.

Orwig will move on when he graduates in May. But he is drafting a plan that he hopes will ensure that the Griz for Kids program continues at UM. He has recruited Grizzly football players Ryan Wells and Mike Murphy to manage Griz for Kids in 2006.

“The groundwork is there,” he said. “The hard work is done.”