Every December since 2012.
Joey’s Toy Drive is run by volunteers in San Jose. About 120 partner organizations collect the toys, our team sorts them, and Bay Area organizations that work with local families all year hand them to the children they serve.
It started with crayon flyers.
It began in 2012 as a school project: come up with an idea that helps your community. Joey Childs, age 8, chose a toy drive, made flyers with crayons and markers, and walked them door to door in his San Jose neighborhood.
The first collection was a few dozen toys. He ran it again the next December, and it has run every December since.
It spread the same way it started.
Someone decides to run a drive where they work, or study, or worship. About 120 organizations now do it every season: companies, schools, faith communities, scout troops, and neighborhood groups, with Fortune 500 companies among them.
Volunteers have carried it past the Bay Area too. Ambassador drives in Monterey and Santa Barbara collect through the season and send everything home to San Jose, where it goes back out to Bay Area children.
The year by year record is on the impact page, and the partner network is on the partners page.
Run entirely by volunteers.
Joey’s Toy Drive has no paid staff. The people who organize the season, run the warehouse, manage partner relationships, and coordinate delivery do it outside their own jobs and schoolwork.
Joey Childs
Founder & Executive Director
Dennis O'Donnell
Director of Operations
Brooke Childs
Volunteer Manager
Katherine Vargas
Office Manager
Regional ambassadors
Chris Ferris
Regional Ambassador
Support services
- Andrey Dini
- Adam Berg
A toy given here goes to a child, not to overhead.
The warehouse, the trucks, and every hour of labor are donated. The freight side is real: trucks, forklifts, and loading docks, all provided by Silicon Valley Moving & Storage.
We take physical toys rather than cash, so what a donor gives is the same thing a child opens.
The next December is already being built.
Partners sign up through the year, and a collection box can go anywhere people already gather. Hosting one costs nothing.