Wanted: toys

The John Theissen Children’s Foundation has already given out about 12,000 toys this holiday season, its executive director estimated, and that’s just the beginning.

The Wantagh-based foundation is holding is 24th annual holiday toy drive to benefit sick and underprivileged children on Long Island. The toys go to hospitals, child care facilities, children’s services agencies and individual families. “The requests are coming in fast,” Theissen said from his Family Fun Center on Wantagh Avenue, which is filled with hundreds of bags of toys.

The thousands of toys in stock “can be gone just like that if I wanted,” he added, noting the incredible demand. Theissen said organizing the toy drive is a tremendous undertaking between getting requests and then making sure toys get to the children.

He said that donations have been down a little bit this year, which he attributes partly to the unseasonably warm weather. He’s hoping for a late wave of donations.

Several organizations are helping Theissen, including local school clubs. The Wantagh High School Key Club, Seaford High School Student Council and MacArthur High School Business Honor Society are among the groups holding toys drives, in which donations will then be given to the foundation.

“I think it’s incredible,” Theissen said about student groups donating to his cause. “The kids are such a huge part of the foundation.”

There are also about 150 toy collection boxes throughout Wantagh and Long Island. One of them is on the DiMatteo family’s front stoop on Manchester Road.

Wantagh High School senior Luca DiMatteo has elaborately decorated the front of his house for Christmas for about a half-dozen years, and, realizing how many people come by to see it, decided to start asking for toy donations this year for Theissen’s foundation. “I love doing this for kids,” the aspiring teacher said. “I expect a lot of toys to come out of this because people do do the right thing in this town.”

DiMatteo’s lights are on every night from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. at 3600 Manchester Road. He said he will bring Theissen all the toys collected by Dec. 22 for the holiday drive, but will leave the box outside of his house through Jan. 6 — Little Christmas.

He added that he hopes to make the toy collection for the foundation an annual event. “I wanted to do something so close to home,” he said. “I think John is doing an amazing thing by helping out so many people.”

Toy drive’s beginnings

Theissen started his foundation after he was hospitalized at Schneider’s Children’s Hospital when he was 17 and a senior at MacArthur for a brain tumor. Dec. 9 marked 27 years since he had his life-saving surgery.

He continues to think about Tasha, a girl who was in the hospital with him, who gave him a teddy bear to cheer him up. Theissen says that she is the inspiration for his foundation. Recently, the Wantagh Key Club presented Theissen with an oversized pink teddy bear, that he said will spontaneously go to a special child.

The toy drive began in 1992, four years after his surgery. Theissen and a few volunteers would hand out fliers to business and homes in Wantagh and Seaford. He also would sit out on his front lawn in North Wantagh with a garbage can, covered in wrapping paper, to accept donations.

Now, the toy drive is nearing the quarter century mark. “This is what we’re known for,” he said. “I’m known as the guy who collects toys.”

Last year, the foundation gave out nearly $1.8 million worth of donations, and he estimated the 50 to 60 percent of that was from the toy drive. “This is it,” he said. “November and December is our big time of giving.”

Theissen said that whenever a parent comes in with a child to drop off a toy, he makes time to talk with that kid about the toy drive and who it benefits. “As busy as I can be,” Theissen said, “if I can sit and talk with that child, it’s so important.”

The Family Fun Center will be open this weekend to take donations. Theissen said he also needs gift cards for teenagers for iTunes, Best Buy, Game Stop and Target. Monetary donations will be used to provide food and winter coats to the families he services.

“I appreciate every gift that comes in,” he said. “I have so much support.”