(Radio Iowa) – An eastern Iowa toy company that makes flexible two-lane racetracks is struggling with supply chain troubles, along with many other businesses, as we approach the busy holiday season. Randy Belding, president and co-founder of Blu Track, says they don’t have the necessary supplies to meet current orders, let alone create a large special order they’d hoped to donate to the Toys for Tots program. “We need extruder PVC,” Belding says, “and unfortunately, we only have one source for it and they’re not even giving us a date anymore of when we can expect our next shipment.”

The company’s Anamosa plant, which employs about ten workers, planned to create 500 track kits — an entire shift’s work — to donate to the popular holiday charity for kids, but Belding says they need about 17-hundred pounds of the P-V-C resin. “What we’re really looking for is some company that would have some extruder PVC resin that they’d be willing to either donate or discount and then we’ll do the rest,” Belding says. “We have volunteers in Anamosa that are willing to come in and help us assemble, we’ll build it all and then we’ll get the product to Toys for Tots.”

Belding says the Blu Track kits allow kids to race two cars at once, side-by-side, while the dual tracks are also being used in school science and physics labs for basic force and motion lessons and even complex coaster designs. Blu Track, which was founded in Pella more than 20 years ago, has long used a Pennsylvania supplier for its P-V-C, but everything has ground to a halt.  “We don’t know what the delay is on their end. They’ve just said they don’t have the raw materials that they need. It could be a lot of things,” Belding says. “From my standpoint, the part that’s kind of scary is that they aren’t giving us a date anymore. That doesn’t make me feel very comfortable that we’re going to get it on time to do much of anything for this Christmas season.”

Time is tight, he says, and they need the resin by November 22nd in order to make the Toys for Tots donation.