NoCo Santa Squad, a new nonprofit that was founded to ensure that every child in Larimer County has a Merry Christmas, is handling its first holiday season, and has enough toys to serve over 1,000 children in the area.

"For us, it's ensuring that kids are taken care of during the holidays, if parents aren't able to afford gifts, especially if they have multiple children, that's something where we can step in and help," Mandy Nelson, secretary of the Board of NoCo Santa Squad, said Tuesday afternoon. "These gifts are coming from Santa Claus, and they're delivered by the Santa Squad. So we're helping Santa deliver these gifts."

The Santa Squad came into being after Santa Cops of Larimer County announced last year that it would cease operations.

Marty Gerlach, who has participated in toy drives for years, had hosted two parties at his home that doubled as toy drives prior to the announcement, hoping to give the gathered gifts to the Santa Cops, but in their absence he elected to start his own organization.

The group has been soliciting donations ever since, and the efforts are coming to fruition. NoCo Santa Squad worked with school counselors and school resource officers, or police officers stationed with the school district, to locate families in need of help, and also accepted requests on its website.

Families submit a form that includes information about their children, including ages, gender, interests and any particular gift they hope to unwrap Christmas morning, and then volunteers "shop" through the thousands of toys that the Santa Squad has available, chooses the presents that best match each child's interests, wrap them, and set them aside, where they will eventually be delivered to each house.

In keeping with the prior group's intent, Gerlach hopes that first responders will volunteer for delivery duty, and already has a commitment from Loveland Fire Rescue Authority to deliver toys. He hopes that other first responder agencies in the area will agree to volunteer as well.

The current headquarters of the Santa Squad is in the basement of Rocky Mountain Sharp Shop, a sharpening service in downtown Loveland that heard about the Santa Squad on the radio and offered its extra space to be used as a makeshift warehouse and wrapping facility.

Tia Flippin, one of the volunteers wrapping presents Tuesday afternoon, found a bike for a 10 year old boy on her list, reasoning that the boy's three younger siblings could make use of the bike as he outgrew it.

Flippin said she wished she could afford to donate more presents, especially for teenagers, as they tend to be harder to shop for and that many donors immediately think of small children when they set out to donate Christmas gifts.

"I don't have the funds to give," she said. "If I did I would be getting more presents for the teens."

Because she can't afford to donate a large number of gifts, she said that she opted to wrap them instead.

The group is currently fully staffed with wrapping volunteers, but donations are accepted year round. Gerlach said that monetary donations are best, as the nonprofit is tax exempt, meaning money can go further if they spend it, and the group has a good sense of what they need and what they have enough of. Monetary donations allow them to target specific categories that are lacking. Those donations can be made on the group's website, nocosantasquad.org