STAFFORD ? First Lady Michelle Obama Wednesday appealed to Americans to dig deep and donate toys for needy children, urging them not to forget older kids in the "tween" years.

"We've got, you know, more than enough toys for younger kids. And one of the challenges that this program has is really finding toys for the older kids," she said as she toured a collection center for the "Toys for Tots" scheme.

"And those are the bins for the kids that are 11-14, and as you can see, they're almost empty here."

Obama brought with her some 500 toys donated by White House staff, but said: "We only brought 30 percent of what we actually collected because that's all that we could fit into the van, but we are still collecting as we speak."

She said everyone at the White House had stepped in to support the effort, which was first launched in 1947 by the Marines.

President Barack Obama and his wife both donated gifts to the campaign, but no details were made available except that their daughters Sasha, 8, and Malia, 11, had helped picked toys for children in their age range.

The Marines' goal this year at the Quantico base in Virginia is to collect 150,000 toys to distribute to 75,000 underprivileged kids from civilian and military families.