Every year starting in late October, the red Toys for Tots boxes start appearing in nearby businesses, institutions and restaurants in Bloomington-Normal. The 110 drop boxes remain fairly vacant until the holiday shopping season.
Come December, Director Troy Ziegler and the McLean County Toys for Tots volunteers answer emails and phone calls to collect the now full boxes.
“Thanksgiving is kind of like the wake-up call, the jingle bell that says, ‘Oh, you’re three weeks away from Christmas,’ and that’s when people start thinking about it,” Ziegler said. “We tend to get really, really busy come about Dec. 1 or Dec. 2.”
Ziegler, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran of Desert Storm, has served as director for 13 years. Outside of his volunteer work, he’s a stationary engineer for Illinois State University.
As the program celebrates its 25-year anniversary, Ziegler said much has changed, mostly technology.
“Email has come up and gotten really popular, it’s really nice to do that. We used to send reports via fax machine and mail, because nothing was emailed,” he said. “So, the advent of the internet and smartphones, because I literally run this program off my phone during the day.”
Over the years, though, the constant has been the mission to give a gift to every child in McLean County on Christmas morning. In 25 years, the program has helped 130,000 kids.
“Up until last year, we averaged anywhere between 4,500 to 5,000 kids a year, and that’s probably since I took over in 2012,” he said. “Last year, we had a 40% increase in numbers, we did almost 7,100 kids.”
Numbers have increased as the program has expanded to work with social service agencies, foster care programs and various school systems to work beyond just the Christmas season.
Just last year, Ziegler said by Christmas Eve the program collected 28,000 toys, worth over $500,000, for the community. He said all the credit does not belong to him.
“I always say, it’s not me. I’m just the face, as ugly as it is. You know, I’m the face and I’m the voice, but it’s the community and it’s the people in this community that make the program run and does what it does,” he said.
Some of the people who help run the program do so because of what it once did for them during the holidays. Ziegler said many former Marines in the program were Toys for Tots kids themselves and the same goes for other volunteers.
Ziegler said the program sees a lot of repeats, so he gets to know some of those families over the years. However, two years ago he saw what he considered a success story of Toys for Tots.
"There was a lady that came through and say, ‘Hey, Troy, hi!’ and we gave her a big hug. We asked what was going on, is everything okay?” Ziegler said. “And she was there to volunteer because she had gotten a job, the kids were better, her situation improved. So, the five or six years that she had used the program, she wanted to give back.”
“There’s a lot of reason why the local coordinators and the people that do this program are there, because the program was there for them.”
But Ziegler said the best Christmas possible would actually for him to be out of work in the Toys for Tots job.
“The best Christmas possible is for me not to have to do this … the long and the short of it, as long as that there’s a child in need, we’ll be here to take care of them,” said Ziegler.
“But the volunteers in this community, the people that step up … it’s unreal of what this town and the people in it can do with as many other charities that they can give to. It’s just amazing.”
Ziegler has no plans of giving up his time with Toys for Tots. He said he will be with the program as long as he can help it, or as long as his wife and kids are okay with it.
