Joey’s Toy Drive

One family, one truckload, the winter of 2012.

What it takes to keep a promise this big.

Every December, a volunteer team gets tens of thousands of new toys to Bay Area kids across nine counties — built on one idea that hasn’t changed since an eight-year-old first loaded a truck.

Give a toySee the impact
Two children holding the new toys they just received next to a Joey's Toy Drive donation box
Two siblings with the toys they received — the whole point of every truckload, every box, every December.
est. 2012

It started in a family driveway.

It began in 2012, when Joey Childs — then 8years old — and his family collected enough new toys to fill the back of a truck and delivered them to families who were having a hard year.

They did it again the next year. And the year after that. A family habit became a neighborhood one, then a regional one — more toys, more families, every December.

The operation has grown every year since. The promise behind it hasn’t moved an inch.

Joey’s Toy Drive exists so that no child in our community wakes up to nothing on Christmas morning.

Our mission, unchanged since 2012Started by Joey Childs at age 8 — San Jose, California

From one truckload to nine counties.

What started in a driveway in 2012is now a regional operation — nearly 40,000 new toys in 2025. About 120 partners — Fortune 500s among them — run collection drives every November and December, then send every toy to San Jose.

30,000

new toys in the 2024 drive

40,000

new toys in the 2025 drive

9

Bay Area counties served

13

Decembers, still 100% volunteer-run

Volunteers pick the toys up, sort them at the San Jose warehouse, and deliver them to families across nine counties: Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, Marin, Sonoma, Monterey, and Santa Cruz. Every toy collected in the Bay Area stays in the Bay Area.

The San Jose warehouse mid-season, stacked with sorted toys ready for delivery across the Bay Area
One warehouse, one season, tens of thousands of toys — counted, sorted, and readied by hand.

Run entirely by volunteers. Still.

Joey’s Toy Drive has no paid staff. The team that organizes the annual drive, runs the warehouse, manages partner relationships, and coordinates delivery does this work outside of regular jobs and schoolwork.

A large group of student volunteers gathered in front of the Joey's Toy Drive and Silicon Valley Moving banner outside the warehouse
The wider crew — student volunteers at the Silicon Valley Moving & Storage yard, where each season’s toys are staged.

  • Joey Childs

    Founder & Executive Director

  • Dennis O'Donnell

    Director of Operations

  • Brooke Childs, Volunteer Manager

    Brooke Childs

    Volunteer Manager

  • Katherine Vargas

    Office Manager

Regional ambassadors

  • Chris Ferris, Regional Ambassador

    Chris Ferris

    Regional Ambassador

Support services

  • Andrey Dini
  • Adam Berg

The trucks, the warehouse, the freight.

Moving tens of thousands of toys through one warehouse in a single season — collected from about 120 partners and delivered across nine counties — is a logistics operation. It runs on the time and equipment of Silicon Valley Moving & Storage, whose trucks, warehouse space, and freight handling are donated to Joey’s Toy Drive every year.

It is the reason a volunteer team can deliver at this scale without paid staff.

Andrey Dini moving freight on the warehouse forklift, wearing a Santa hat, during the December drive
Andrey Dini, on the forklift, Santa hat on — the work is volunteer; the scale is real.

The operation grows. The promise holds.

Thirteen Decembers in, the promise that started in a driveway is the same one it has always been. You can be part of the next one.

Give a toyHost a drive