ESCANABA — While people around the country are stuffing their turkeys, the Daily Press will also be filling its Toys for Tots box with gifts for needy children as it sells ads for the bulked-up Thanksgiving edition. The Daily Press will be helping Toys for Tots this holiday season through advertisements sold in the issue the day before Thanksgiving.

The day after Thanksgiving has long been a time for shopping and sales. The term “Black Friday” — previously used for disastrous circumstances like shipwrecks, the fall of the stock market, and Fridays falling on the 13th of month — took on a new meaning several decades back and now has been adopted by many to refer to the major swell in holiday retail that comes immediately after the November turkey feast most Americans traditionally celebrate.

Newspapers have historically been an avenue for stores to get word of their specific sales offerings out to the public. As there is no Daily Press on Thanksgiving Day, the edition published just prior on Wednesday tends to be the thickest one of the year, chock full of inserts from area businesses advertising price drops and special offerings. These hefty sales-riddled periodicals can become part of the holiday activities for people planning out their shopping — with the papers spread out like a feast, they may pore through the inserts and strategize.

For some families, it’s as much a part of the Thanksgiving custom as cranberry sauce and football.

Editors and publishers take pride in making an issue that readers, shoppers and retailers enjoy engaging with. Ogden Newspapers — the West Virginia-based corporation that owns the Daily Press in Escanaba, The Mining Journal in Marquette, the Iron Mountain Daily News, and dozens of other papers around the nation — is aiming to not only aid in that goal by making ad space more affordable to businesses but also help the community by donating to a good cause for every advertisement sold.

One suggestion from Ogden, said Daily Press Publisher Sarah Maki, was to donate to a local food pantry. But since the Daily Press has just recently organized events that benefited food pantries — the Ice Fishing and Hunting Expo raised a truckload of goods for St. Vincent de Paul, and the Senior Expo collected canned and other shelf-stable items for Seventh-day Adventist — the choice was made to help out another nonprofit. Toys for Tots will be receiving multiple gifts for every advertisement one-sixteenth of a page and larger bought for the Wednesday, Nov. 27 edition.

Toys for Tots is a charity directed by the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and provides gifts for children in families struggling at Christmastime. Last year, the Escanaba division distributed 8,500 toys to 1,529 children, according to the Toys for Tots website.

The Daily Press usually participates as a collection point for donated gifts, and this year, the paper will add to the stack on behalf of its advertisers by buying six new toys for every full-page ad sold, five for a half-page, four for a quarter-page, three for an eighth-page, and two for a sixteenth.

The cost of an advertisement is dramatically lower than usual for this edition, said Maki — a full-page ad for Nov. 27 is a fraction of the regular price.

The Daily Press would like to see local businesses take advantage of the opportunity to buy “deeply-discounted” ads while also providing to a children’s charity through no additional effort. Before Christmas, the paper will publish another full page thanking all participants.

To get on board, advertisers should reach out to their representatives at the Daily Press or contact 906-786-2021 ext. 115.