Sam Love’s Toy Drive

                The past two and a half months have been very busy meeting people going to events and exploring the area. So busy that I haven’t really had a chance to update my blog or send a newsletter. Sorry about that. Throughout the year I have been going to Mayflower, a town close to Little Rock that was devastated by a tornado this spring, to attend long term recovery meetings. On December 22, I was able to attend a toy drive put on by a partnership between Mayflower interfaith long term recovery, Vilonia's , another town hurt by the tornado, interfaith long term recovery group and Samuel Love’s Annual Toy Drive.

                The idea for the toy drive came from Samuel Love. Samuel was 8 years old when Hurricane Sandy hit. After it hit he wondered how the kids in the affected area would get presents. He asked his dad this question and they decided to put on a toy drive for the children in the affected area. It was so successful that he put it on the next year for the same area. This year he decided to put a toy drive on for the children affected by the tornadoes in Arkansas this spring.  

                At the fundraiser I was put back in the toy room. What I expected to see was a room filled with McDonald’s Happy Meal toys and other low cost toys. However, I was surprised to find that many of these toys were more expensive toys that lots of kids would like to receive. There were remote control cars, helicopters, Barbie Dolls, footballs, basketballs, board games, action figures and several other different toys.

                The kids would come into the front desk and register. We would get the age and gender of the kid. After that we would search the room to find an appropriate gift. We were hid away in a corner from the crowd on purpose so people couldn't come in and pick out their gifts. This also made so we couldn't see their faces when they opened their presents so it seemed like a thankless job. We did however get some presents sent back for various reasons some included kids who had special needs, but other were the kid didn't like it and wanted something else instead. This made the job frustrating because we only got negative feedback and we weren't being told of positive feedback.

                At the end of the day we had handed out over 200 presents to kids at the event and that was just a dent in the number of presents we had available in the toy room. The case workers knew of several families that didn't attend the event for various reasons so we got presents for them. The rest of the gifts were taken to the children’s hospital in Little Rock.

There was also food, games, bounce houses, face painting, and Santa himself decided to show up. I was told by Liz and Nancy, the two other volunteers I went with, that the parents told them that they loved it that they could take their kids to a safe spot where the kids could run around and the parents could take a break.  They also reported that the people there had a great time. The couple of times I got out of the toy room to use the bathroom and eat lunch it was obvious that everyone was having a great time.

What I took away from Samuel"s Toy Drive

Just because you’re young doesn't mean you can’t do big things.. Samuel reminded me of a verse in the Bible. 1 Timothy 4:12 “Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.” Samuel is only 11 and they are probably thousands of kids who have had Christmas presents because of Samuel. Samuel Love doesn't let being young get in the way of showing strangers love and doing big things for people.

                Not everyone will be appreciative of your work even if they are receiving something for free. It’s unfortunate probably 98% of the kids who received something probably really enjoyed it but it was the 2% that didn't that made the people in the back with me feel really frustrated. God wants us to do things without expecting things in return like a thank you but it’s still a real hard thing to do.

                After a disaster even simple things like a safe place for kids to play can really help lift someone’s spirits. It was a good family event that many people could come to and forget their troubles even if it was for just a few hours.