Our History

By his fourth holiday season in 2015, ten-year-old Joey began reaching beyond his immediate circle and inviting wider neighborhood support. That December, he collected 150 new, unwrapped toys for the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve's local Toys for Tots campaign.

On December 18, 2015, ABC7 News visited Joey in San Jose for the first television story on Joey's Toy Drive (watch the archived 2015 ABC7 5:00 PM broadcast). Standing beside the pile of donated gifts, ten-year-old Joey explained why he started the tradition:

In 2016, people across Joey's neighborhood began recognizing his annual toy drive and looking forward to it. Starting in September of his fifth-grade year, Joey designed his own flyer, printed stacks of copies, and spent hours walking street by street through his neighborhood, knocking on doors and telling families about his toy drive.

That fall, the toy drive also reached beyond residential doorsteps for the first time. Joey gained the support of his school along with a couple of local businesses, including a neighborhood Walgreens location and UBS Bank, that agreed to collect toys alongside him.

When ABC7 reporter Matt Keller visited in December 2016, eleven-year-old Joey summed up his approach plainly:

In 2017, Joey's Toy Drive collected more than a thousand gifts for the first time, and Joey began to see how far it could go.

By that sixth season, the list of supporting local businesses hosting collection boxes in their lobbies had grown to around four. A couple of local stores also generously donated gift cards to Joey's Toy Drive to spend in their own stores, and Joey used them to buy toys for older kids and teens, who are often overlooked.

ABC7 reporter Matt Keller returned in December 2017 to cover the surge in community support. By the time the final donations were counted, Joey's Toy Drive had nearly quadrupled the prior year's total, finishing with 1,045 toys.

2018 was a devastating year for wildfires in California, including the Camp Fire in Paradise. When ABC7 News visited Joey in early December 2018, there were fewer filled boxes in his basement than at the same point the year before.

Thirteen-year-old Joey kept his goal and spent the rest of the month knocking on more doors, asking local businesses to host collection boxes, and inviting friends from school and family to help collect toys. By the end of the season, the community had rallied to contribute 1,600 toys. As Joey told ABC7 at the final drop-off: You just got to keep working harder and harder, and reaching out to more places. That's how this is possible.

That winter also brought recognition from the San Francisco 49ers, who profiled Joey's work after learning he had spent a Saturday in December traveling up to Paradise, California, to help hand out toys to families displaced by the Camp Fire. In January 2019, 49ers Co-Chairman Dr. John York welcomed Joey to Levi's Stadium to honor his dedication to local families.

In December 2022, Joey's Toy Drive celebrated its tenth anniversary season. What had started when Joey was seven years old was now a decade-old South Bay tradition supported by 16 partner businesses hosting collection boxes of their own.

KTVU Fox 2 anchors Alex Savidge and Heather Holmes welcomed seventeen-year-old Joey onto their broadcast that December to talk about the ten-year milestone and the ongoing need for gifts for older kids and teens. By the close of the 2022 season, the community had donated 6,442 toys, more than double the year before.

For its first ten years, Joey had organized everything largely on his own, with family and friends helping out during the busiest days of December. In August 2023, as planning began for the twelfth season, Joey realized that if Joey's Toy Drive was going to reach its full potential, he needed a dedicated team of people who shared his passion for the mission.

He invited several of his closest friends to form the first official Joey's Toy Drive volunteer team. As a group of eighteen-year-olds with different strengths and ideas, they met multiple times a week from August through Christmas to contact prospective partners, deliver collection boxes, manage day-to-day operations, and organize gifts by age group.

In its first season, the team helped Joey's Toy Drive grow:

• 39 partnered organizations (including local schools, businesses, retail stores, and churches) each hosted their own toy drive.
• In November 2023, the youth-led team hosted its first community benefit dinner at the History Club of Los Gatos.
• Joey's Toy Drive stopped passing its donations to a single outside campaign and began distributing toys directly to local families and to local nonprofits that help families in need.
• Featured on KTVU Fox 2, the 2023 season brought in 12,800 toys, nearly double the prior year's collection.

As Joey wrote in his letter to supporters at the close of that season: I truly believe that people want to help, but many just don't know how. Because of this, I have utilized Joey's Toy Drive to create the bridge between people who want to help, and people who need the help.

In the fall of 2024, Joey was away for his first semester of college. He planned and coordinated outreach with his volunteer team from afar before returning home for winter break to lead in person.

Participation in the Host a Toy Drive program climbed to 47 partner organizations, with schools, fire stations, and companies rallying their communities to fill collection boxes. KTVU Fox 2 returned in December 2024 to cover the organization's thirteenth season, which collected around 30,000 toys for local nonprofits, schools, shelters, and community holiday events.

In 2025, the number of partner organizations more than doubled from the year before.

That season, 104 partner organizations hosted toy drives across 111 total locations, ranging from neighborhood shops, schools, and fire stations to major corporate offices. Together with thousands of individual donors dropping off toys at public collection sites, visiting our San Jose office, and ordering from our online wishlist, these partners made 2025 the most widely supported season in our history.

Those gifts fulfilled holiday toy requests for dozens of local nonprofits, schools, churches, and family service agencies, and supplied the toys for a December 2025 Golden State Warriors Season of Giving event where Warriors guard Brandin Podziemski helped hand out gifts to local children and families.