For 15 years, Nancy Stoke at the Torrey Pines Rotary Club has been collecting toys at the San Diego County Fair.  Each year, she and her team of dedicated volunteers set up collection boxes and collect toys and stuffed animals from willing participants.  Volunteers interact with guests departing the fair to encourage donations of toys won there, answer questions, arrange for hand-offs of gently used donations that may be at home, and hand out bookmarks or some token item as a Thank You for a donation which has Rotary contact info on the back. Volunteers get complimentary admission tickets to the Fair, so you can enjoy the Fair before or after your shift.

Over the years, Nancy’s project has collected over 110,000 toys that have been distributed to children in need. She and her team typically receive at least 400-500 donations daily. At the end of each day, the donated toys are taken to a secure location to be sorted.

Volunteers are needed to help with collecting donations and moving donations to the storage facility at the end of the day. This year more than ever there are many children in need of the comfort of a stuffed animal. Donations will be distributed to Hospital Infantil de las Californias.

Our members will volunteer as a group at the Sorting & Bagging shift on July 15. This will involve preparing donations for distribution by: inspecting each donation to be sure it is clean and has no rips/tears, cleaning donations, and sorting donations by size. Donations that don’t pass inspection are divided as needed: spot cleaning, full washer/dryer cleaning, stitching, or impossible to salvage.

Contact us at mverotary@gmail.com if you’re interested in signing up!

If that shift doesn’t work for you, you can view the master volunteer calendar and job descriptions to find an alternate shift.