Over the past 13 years, Capt. Cletis Evans, USMC (Ret), has helped to make the holiday season a little brighter for more than 227,000 children in Kentucky. As the local coordinator for the Marine Toys for Tots program, Evans and his team of Marines provide Toys for Tots services to 10 counties.

“Since being appointed this role in January 2012 as a member of the Marine Corps League Detachment 729, my team of Marines and volunteers, coupled with local organizations, collected and disbursed over 640,000 toys,” said Evans, a MOAA Life member, who has accumulated more than 15,600 volunteer hours with the program.

His Marine Corps career began with his enlistment in November 1985. Assigned to 2nd Marine Division, Evans deployed four times, including an eight-month deployment to operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. As a staff sergeant, he deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for six months in support of Operation Sea Signal in 1995. In 1997, he was appointed as a warrant officer and completed tours in Okinawa, Japan, with deployments to South Korea and Thailand. He returned to the U.S. for an acquisition assignment to Marine Corps Systems Command.

Following a one-year return tour to Okinawa, now-Capt. Evans was assigned back to 2nd Marine Division in 2003.

He then deployed twice to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, for 13 months to Ramadi and, after 10 months at home, to Fallujah for 12 months.

“It was a rough 13 months,” Evans said of his first deployment. “I lost a Marine there on June 23, 2005, the day after my birthday. Her name was [Cpl.] Ramona Valdez.”

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Valdez was serving with a female search team where she helped guard checkpoints and search Iraqi women and children. Her convoy, on its way back to Camp Fallujah, was hit by a suicide bomber.

Evans, a self-described “deployment junkie,” realized during his second deployment to Iraq that it was time to reassess his goal of hitting the 30-year mark in the Marine Corps.

“My kids were older during this deployment, and they knew what was going on. They were deeply concerned about me,” he said. “I decided to put in my retirement papers.”

After retiring in 2008, he entered defense contracting. He also has worked as a licensed real estate agent since 2016.  

But his passion is giving back to his community. In addition to his work with Toys for Tots, Evans is president of MOAA’s Kentucky Council of Chapters and chairman of the Louisville Armed Forces Committee. He also is “the voice of Greenwaves,” working as the play-by-play broadcaster for the Meade County High School football and basketball teams on the local FM radio station WMMG 93.5. 

In 2019, Evans was inducted into the Kentucky Veterans Hall of Fame and is the 2025 recipient of the Martin G. Hanse, Sr. Humanitarian Award, which was established in 2016 by the Marine Corps Coordinating Council of Kentucky board of directors to recognize individuals “who have demonstrated compassion, charity, and philanthropy in alleviating suffering and helping those less fortunate ... through personal dedicated service of an inspirational nature.”

“It’s nice to be recognized,” Evans said of the awards, but added he’s simply following the advice of a close friend who told him to “go out and do something that means something.”

Evans encourages others to do the same by finding their local Toys for Tots coordinator, reaching out, and getting involved. “Giving money is important, but giving time is priceless,” he said.