Thanks to the generosity of hundreds of donors and volunteers, Catholic Charities in Lake County fulfilled Christmas wish lists for 9,000 children in need this year.

The agency’s annual Celebration of Giving Christmas toy drive began 40 years ago in Lake County and it has grown into an effort that begins in September, recruits 450 volunteers and fills donated warehouse space with thousands of toys. Catholic Charities also does an annual toy drive in Cook County.

Carrying a steaming cup of coffee in the cold warehouse in Libertyville, Sue Fowler, a parishioner at St. Mary Parish in Lake Forest, explained how the production works on Dec. 8.

Fowler, a volunteer and former volunteer coordinator for the toy drive,  was dressed to match the festive spirit with a Santa hat and sparkly Christmas earrings.

In September, Catholic Charities begins collecting wish lists for children whose families are in need. The only requirements to submit wish requests are identification with a Lake County address and a Medicaid card.

Lists come in for Catholic Charities clients and from other agencies in Lake County, such as foster care organizations and substance abuse counseling services. Catholic Charities also takes in-person requests during a week in September.

Once the lists are collected, the information is entered into a database and then matched with donors. The donors — individuals, groups, schools, parishes or businesses — receive the wish lists in October.

Most donations are dropped off at the warehouse the second weekend of December.

Some people don’t want to give to a specific family; they can order from Catholic Charities’ Amazon wish list or send other items, Fowler said. Those go into a “store” where volunteers shop to fill in gaps in lists.

“We want to make sure the gifts are all new,” Fowler explained. “We want to make sure if there are two or three kids in the family that they relatively have equal stuff. That you don’t have one kid with a lot and another kid with nothing.”

Donations are sorted into rows up and down the large warehouse and checked against the lists to ensure each request is fulfilled.

Three hundred bikes were tucked in a corner, where a volunteer checked to make sure each bike was fully assembled and its tires were inflated.

Agencies and individuals picked up their toys the weekend of Dec. 12-14. When they arrived, Santa greeted them and a volunteer took their list and ran to the spot in the warehouse where their toys were waiting to pick them up.

Before leaving, each person stopped at a checkout table to make sure they received the correct gifts. The following day, Dec. 15, the effort was to open up to people who missed the sign-up.

 The personalized nature of the annual toy drive makes it different than other major Christmas toy drives, Fowler said.

“The beauty of this is we’re asking them, ‘What would you like?’ And you’re getting them what they want,” she said.

For five years, Fowler managed the volunteers as a Catholic Charities staff member. Now retired, she serves as a volunteer. 

“Once you get going in this, it’s just fun,” she said. “It’s a wonderful cause and it’s interesting.”

Many families submit requests for practical items like socks, sweatshirts and pajamas, but each season’s popular toys show up on the lists too, she said.

“Every year there is something new. When slime came out, oh my gosh, everybody wanted slime for a couple years,” Fowler said. Paw Patrol, Hello Kitty, Legos and Barbies are mainstays.

According to Fowler and other volunteers, they receive more than they give.

“We get so many thank-yous, so many people who are just like, ‘I don’t know what I would have done without you,’” Fowler said. “It just makes you feel good.”

Maureen Kelly, Catholic Charities’ volunteer coordinator for the toy drive, agreed.

“It’s a feel-good program when you see the faces of the kids and the parents when they show up,” Kelly said. “There’s nothing bad about giving away things to people who need them.”

Volunteers share lots of stories about special moments during the drive. For example, every year, several of the 450 volunteers tell coordinators they were once beneficiaries of the toy drive.

Other times, Kelly said, volunteers will be personally touched by a family they meet while they are taking the wish lists and will go above and beyond to fulfill their Christmas wishes.

If there is a lead elf in the operation, it’s Deacon Jim Wogan from St. Mary of Vernon Parish in Indian Creek, Kelly said. 

“People do it because of him,” Kelly said “He’s the lifeblood of this.”

Wogan starting volunteering with the drive more than 30 years ago after retiring from the Army after 24 years and teaching. He was the volunteer coordinator for 14 years before retiring in 2012. Like Fowler, he has stayed on as a volunteer.

“Not in a million years could I envision not doing this for Christmas,” Wogan said. “I will tell you that is the feeling of most of the volunteers out here. Of all of the things that I do, this is the easiest thing in the world to recruit volunteers for, because it’s all feel-good.”

Fowler and Kelly said that Wogan has recruited many of the core volunteers himself. And like many of those volunteers, Wogan views the annual toy drive as a ministry.

“To me, perfect ministry is when the person being ministered to and the person doing the ministry also gain equally or very close,” he said. “All these people are getting something out of this. They may be doing it for free, but they are getting something out of it.”

But in the end, it is about those receiving the gifts for Christmas, he said.

“In some cases, at least, whatever is in that bag is all they are getting for Christmas,” Wogan said.