Waterford — Local organizations have stepped up to help a New Haven holiday gift drive after $20,000 worth of toys was stolen from the organization's collection.  

The Waterford Police Department donated a truck full of toys to the site of the New Haven drive Tuesday morning, according to Chief Brett Mahoney.

Metashar Dillon, the president of Kingdom International Economic Development Corporation, told the New Haven Register that she arrived Saturday evening at the community room in the New Haven police substation where she had collected the boxes of toys and coats to find that many of the donations were missing.

The theft is still under investigation, Dillon said Tuesday.

Mahoney said he heard about the incident in a news report, and wanted to help.

Waterford police completed a successful food drive Sunday, and already had donated a number of toys, food and clothing items to the Waterford Youth Services Bureau and local residents who needed them.

“We had this truck full of toys that we were going to bring over to (Waterford) Youth Services,” he said.

Staff member there told him they had enough toys to cover demand in Waterford, so he sent Officer Ryan Spearrin with a cruiser full of toys to New Haven on Tuesday morning.

The New Haven toy and coat drive was scheduled to end Tuesday, but has been extended a day as donations have continued to flow in, according to Kingdom International Economic Development Corporation Communications Director Yvonne R. Davis.

Davis said the organization also received a toy donation from the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe in addition to money and toys from all over Connecticut and as far away as California.

“There’s so many organizations that have stepped up,” she said.

Though the drive still needs children’s coats and toys for infants and older children, she said as donations continue to roll in, the Kingdom International Economic Development Corporation still may be able to meet the need of the 3,000 people who had signed up to receive gifts before the theft, Dillon said.

"It's been so awesome," she said. "The blessing has been so great."

m.shanahan@theday.com

Twitter: @martha_shan