Every year, skilled seniors at the Ocean Hills Country Club in Oceanside, CA build hundreds of Christmas toys for donation to families from U.S. Marine Corps Camp Pendleton. These folks are all members of the Ocean Hills Woodchucks Woodworking Club, and they have been putting craftsmanship to work in the community for decades. Members of the woodworking club donated around 16 wooden toys for display at the Miniature Engineering Craftsmanship Museum. Several of the wooden toys can be found near the front of the museum, but a handful of others are not on display.
The original donation of toys includes:
A wooden army tank, field cannon, bulldozer, and three different “Woodie” models made by Bob “Murph” Haugen. A wooden whistle, basket, giraffe, musician sculpture, and two machinist’s puzzle cubes made by Bob Melman. A wooden taxicab built by Carolyn Hollander. A wooden doll bed built by Carolyn and Jerome Hollander and Bob Allen. A jigsaw puzzle with blade made by John Manning. And a wooden flatbed truck model built by Carl Streling. The Ocean Hills Woodchucks also donated several other wooden toys built by Goldie Weis, Larry Bowers, and Mitch McCarroll. Note that not all of the wooden toys are shown in the photos below.
