Reed Marcum was just a kid when he learned that some children in his town of McAlester Oklahoma didn’t have any toys under their Christmas tree.
A shy kid who was bullied in school, Reed remembered the moment very clearly, since he was no stranger to feeling left out. Even though his parents divorced when he was just 7, there were people who stepped in to make Christmas time special, so the thought this his fifth-grade friend would find nothing under the tree was tough to hear.
Whatever the reason his heart or his blues, he proposed to his mother to hold a toy drive, similar in structure to a backpack drive they had organized the year before. Reed’s mother, Angie Miller, posted a video on Facebook explaining her son’s intentions, and asked for donations of toys or money to buy toys for a giveaway that Reed had decided to do as a 4-H project.
“There was a great response—lots of people went out and bought new toys to donate, or they sent money for us to buy them,” Miller said.
That was all 7 years ago, and now as a university freshman, Reed still drives two-and-a-half hours home from his campus in Stillwater to participate in the annual toy drive; now in its seventh edition.
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10,000 toys are slated to be handed out in this year’s giveaway which takes place as a drive-through event, with eager kids in the back seats gesticulating to their parents which toy they like the most. Each kid also receives a pair of socks, underwear, trousers, a shirt, gloves, and a hat.
“We have walls of toys lined up on each side of the cars, and kids tell us which ones to grab as their parents drive them through the line,” Reed, who studies prelaw and sociology at OK State University, told the Washington Post. “Seeing the happy looks on their faces is always the best part.”
54,000 toys have so far been given out to kids in McAlester, which unfortunately has a poverty rate of 24% according to international statistics.
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Reed continues paying forward, as he sees it, the kindness his family received more than a decade ago by starting other charitable programs. He holds silent auctions to benefit pediatric cancer patients, and continues the backpack giveaways he started with his mom when he was just 11 years old.
One resident told the Post that he’s catalyzed everyone in the community; everyone wants to get involved with his work in some way, and the paper says his activities have raised more than $3.5 million.
SHARE This Young Man’s Heroic Work With Your Friends In Time For Christmas…
Thank you for your kindness toward others. The more we all offer kind actions, the more all our hearts will heal & feel joy. Thank you for setting such a beautiful example. :>)
Congratulations, Reed! Your kindness, hard work and empathy make you a true hero!