Lower than average donations didn’t derail Toys for Tots campaign

Despite a lackluster year of donations and other potential setbacks, the South-Central Kentucky Toys for Tots Campaign provided a record number of toys to more children than ever before over the Christmas season.

In total, the campaign distributed 26,358 toys to 12,207 children this year. In addition, more than 10,000 books and more than 8,000 stocking stuffers were also provided. Those numbers include the campaign’s coverage area, which consists of seven counties—Whitley, Laurel, Knox, Clay, Leslie and McCreary counties, as well as Campbell County, Tennessee—and two additional areas outside of it—Breathitt and Floyd counties.

In those additional areas, nearly 900 children in Breathitt County and more than 800 children in Floyd County received a total of over 1,500 toys each during this year’s campaign.

Cathy Sims, who is a coordinator for the campaign, and her volunteers worked right up to the wire getting toys ready, with the final pickup being made on the evening of Dec. 23.

Sims expressed her sincere thanks to everyone who donated, volunteered or allowed for collection boxes to be placed at their businesses. And while she also said that this year’s campaign was one of the least-donated to in recent memory, Sims noted that she was aware of multiple factors that could be to blame for the lack of contributions.

“The toys that came in this year were not in the numbers we’ve had in the past years,” said Sims. “I can honestly say I can see how bad the economy hit everybody, because I can see by what we collected was so off from all the previous years. Actually, this year was worse off than all through the COVID years. Everything is so high right now that people have save their money to buy food for their families. They can’t afford to donate toys.”

According to Sims’ rough estimates, approximately 22,000 of the toys given out during this year’s campaign were provided by the national Toys for Tots Foundation. Without the backing of the national foundation, Sims said they would not have come anywhere close to having enough toys.

“They always come through for us,” said Sims.

The campaign also had a number of other obstacles this past year, with sickness being chief among them. With the campaign only having a group of four primary volunteers who work full-time at the campaign’s warehouse, having anyone out for an extended time can be problematic.

In addition to sickness, another issue arose that will have somewhat of a lasting impact on the campaign moving forward.

Cathy Sims has headed up the South-Central Kentucky Toys for Tots Campaign as co-coordinator with her husband, Greg Sims, since the couple took it over in 2017, but due to some major health issues, Greg Sims was forced to the sidelines in November and was not able to return to the Toys for Tots warehouse. For that reason, Greg Sims is stepping down as co-coordinator to an assistant coordinator role. He is still expected to work as the campaign’s marketing/public relations liaison, but will likely do much of that remotely for the foreseeable future.

However, one of the campaign’s core volunteers, Brian Clemons, will be moving into an assistant coordinator position. Clemons cannot act as a legitimate co-coordinator without training from the national Toys for Tots Foundation, so Cathy Sims will act as the sole lead coordinator.

With the season now over, Cathy Sims is already looking ahead to the 2023 campaign, which she said she already has a bit of a head start on due to some additional donations from the national foundation that were made too late to be distributed.

She also asked that if any businesses that had any late collections to contact her at (606) 549-4083 and she would have those picked up as soon as possible.