Northern New Mexico Toy Drive collecting donations for 10K kids

At one point in her life, Lynn Charley was raising four girls and two boys by herself on the east side of New Mexico’s Navajo Nation.

She remembers the constant pressure to meet her children’s basic needs, but perhaps nothing shielded them from the hard-up circumstances of that time in their lives more than the joy of a new toy.

Today, Charley helps coordinate gifts for her tribe from the Northern New Mexico Toy Drive, which serves around 10,000 kids each year in communities from Albuquerque to as far north as the Colorado state line.

“There are a lot of struggles out there, especially with us Navajos,” Charley said. “There are a lot of single mothers out there that need help getting gifts for the holidays. We usually have our annual parade on the 23rd of December, and that’s when we give out all the toys we get from the drive.”

The Los Alamos-based nonprofit that runs the drive has been sponsored by real estate brokerage Exit Realty since 2020. The organization recently began collecting gifts for kids in need throughout the state this holiday season, said Becca Jones, who leads both organizations.

“A lot of people ask us: ‘Why toys?’” she said. “There’s so many other needs that kids, especially in our state, might have, like back to school, food and clothing — things like that. We absolutely agree that those things are vital for kids. But they’re still kids, and sometimes this toy drive provides the only new thing that a kid will get all year.”

Jones’ husband, Santa Fe firefighter Rollin Jones, started the toy drive in 2009. He still plays a central role in coordinating the mass gift-giving effort with his wife every year.

This week, he was stationed outside Santa Fe’s Walmart Supercenter, where he handed out flyers to shoppers with specific gifts wished for by youth whose families qualified for the 2025 drive.

“We asked our partner groups and the kids early on what they actually want,” he said. “And then we have a list of gifts that these kids are actually hoping to receive, you know? That way, we’re not just giving, like, a 16-year-old boy a stuffed rabbit or something. We want kids to know people care about them and truly want to get them what they want so they feel seen and appreciated.”

The toy drive’s list of sponsors has expanded every year. It now includes the city of Santa Fe, the Santa Fe Fire Department, the Los Alamos Fire Department, Los Alamos High School, Los Alamos National Laboratory, The Housing Trust, Hutton Broadcasting, Homewise and Opulent.

Rollin Jones said families qualify for the program by working with partners to measure social determinants, like annual income. And, whenever possible, gifts are provided to parents in advance so they can hand them to their kids themselves.

According to the organization’s website, exittoydrive.com, about 436 toys — or 4% of the goal of 10,000 — have been collected to date.

“We have a long way to go, for sure,” Rollin Jones said.

Asked how he started the toy drive in 2009, he references the classic children’s fable, “Stone Soup: An Old Tale.”

Written by late American children’s book writer, Marcia Brown, and first published in 1947, the story follows three soldiers who make soup using water, stones and an ingredient from local villagers who complete the meal.

“We just ask everybody for a little bit of ingredients, and we make a big soup,” Rollin Jones said. “That’s how we get thousands of kids presents.”

The Joneses have two daughters of their own, and their youngest, age 14, still helps them with the toy drive.

“It’s forced family fun,” Becca Jones joked. “They get volun-told, but they’ve always been willing participants, for sure.”

Her husband said there have been lean years in the Jones family, so “we definitely understand the struggle.”

Having an understanding of what it’s like making ends meet in a family, whatever the circumstances, is a key part of what makes the toy drive an annual success New Mexicans rally around, Charley said.

“It’s really a blessing,” she said. “Before this, we just didn’t know where to go about getting toys and whatnot to our community. We had some nonprofits that helped us during COVID with food and stuff like that, but the toy drive is one of those events families look forward to.”

To make a donation, visit exittoydrive.com.