Toys for Tots Opens a Summer Drive, and Generosity Takes a Quieter Season
A toy given months before Christmas can still be an act of faithful love.
But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Matthew 6:3-4— ESV
Toys for Tots organized a summer donation event to begin collecting gifts ahead of its annual Christmas toy drive. The event gives donors an early opportunity to contribute toys before the traditional holiday rush.
By gathering donations months in advance, the organization can prepare earlier for the Christmas season, when demand for gifts and volunteer support typically increases. The summer drive is aimed at helping ensure toys are ready for children and families when holiday distribution begins.
There is something spiritually clarifying about giving Christmas toys in the summer. No carols are playing. No decorated trees are glowing in the corner. No holiday mood is carrying everyone along. A toy placed in a donation box months early may not feel like a grand seasonal gesture at all. It is simply a quiet act of care for a child the giver may never meet.
That makes this kind of giving a fitting lens for Jesus’ words in Matthew. “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” is not a command to make generosity cold or hidden for its own sake. It is an invitation to be free from needing the moment to notice us back. When the need becomes the center, giving becomes less about how generous we appear and more about whether someone else is helped.
Christmas giving can be beautiful, but summer giving asks a slightly different question: Are we willing to care before the need feels urgent? Before the music swells? Before everyone else is doing it too? Sometimes love looks like preparing early, quietly, and without an emotional spotlight. And maybe that is where generosity becomes most honest — when it is not pulled along by the calendar, but moved by compassion.
Today's Prayer
Lord, make us attentive to needs before they become visible or urgent, and teach us to give quietly without needing recognition. Bless the children and families who will receive these toys, and strengthen the volunteers preparing now for a season still months away. Amen.