This weekend, the seventh annual Tunes for Tots concert fundraiser will be held at Main Street Pub in LaGrange.

Lights Out, Blood Kinfolk, Wicked Dixie and Hollow Sky are all scheduled to take part in the concert, which will be one of the last major efforts of the year to gather toys for local children before those donations are dispersed.

“I think having it where we are having it this year, we are going to have the biggest turnout we’ve ever had,” said Josh East, who organizes the annual concert. “It seems to have really good reception so far, so I am really excited about that.”

The amount raised by the event varies from year to year, but organizers are hopeful that the location of this year’s event in downtown LaGrange will encourage people to come out and help local children.

“We are going to do it because there are kids who don’t get Christmas presents, and I figured this would be a good way to help,” said Leslie Knott, owner of Main Street Pub.

Knott said East encouraged Main Street Pub to participate, and she is excited to be a part of the fundraiser.

All the participants in the fundraiser have donated their time and effort to making the fundraiser possible, including the bands and DJ who East hopes will please a wide variety of music lovers.

“We like to have music for everybody, and this year we have three bands and a DJ,” East said. “We’ve never had a DJ before. We’ve had some house music, but we’ve never had a DJ, so we are hoping that caters to a new crowd as well. We have a Southern Rock Band, and we have an acoustic band, and we have a punk rock band. We are hoping that everybody can hear something that they like, and everybody can come together and have a good time.”

While many of the donations for Toys for Tots events will go to different families who have applied for assistance through the Salvation Army, the toys gathered on Saturday are set to go to the Empty Stocking Fund. Other collection boxes will be collected by Friday, so this will be the last opportunity to give for this holiday season.

“Bright and early Monday morning, we’ll give the toys that we get Saturday night to the Empty Stocking Fund of LaGrange and the Empty Stocking Fund of Hogansville,” said Bernard Bledsoe, local Toys for Tots coordinator.

Bledsoe commended Troup County residents for their generosity in both time and donations that make the annual Toys for Tots drives possible, especially the first responders who helped gather toys at Walmart this month.

“We can’t thank the people enough in Troup County for making this work,” Bledsoe said. “We can’t thank the Empty Stocking of LaGrange folks and the Empty Stocking of Hogansville folks and the Salvation Army for year after year doing a great job of screening and identifying families in need and making Christmas available for those folks just like everybody else on Christmas. I think it is just wonderful that they are doing that, and we are proud to work with them.”