With Team’s Move, S.f. Toy Drive Missing Help From 49ers Fans

City police officers would simply show up to a 49ers game — one where fans had been told in advance to bring a game or ball or teddy bear — and watch the toy bins fill up. For nearly 20 years, the Niners supported Operation Dream, the San Francisco Police Department’s annual drive to collect toys during the holidays for children in low-income families. Typically, the game-day drive would have brought in several thousand toys, as well as monetary donations from football fans — in addition to other donations of toys and money raised by the police organization. A week before Christmas, the 49ers Foundation, not wanting to leave San Francisco in the lurch, mailed a check to Operation Dream, said Joanne Pasternack, the team’s director of community relations. [...] it stings a bit that the football team is holding a toy drive at the new Santa Clara stadium, with the local police department taking over for San Francisco. Just not to those in San Francisco anymore, and that means the local effort is falling short this year, especially when it comes to older kids, the preteens who want video games, K’Nex, nail polish and necklaces, rather than Legos, dolls or teddy bears. Hoping to raise money to buy toys and fill the bins, the department created an online fundraiser on Nov.