50,000 gifts go to Portland-area children from FOX 12 Les Schwab Tire Centers Toy Drive, nonprofit partners

PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) - Year round, Children’s Home Society of Washington provides resources like counseling and a food pantry to families in the Vancouver area.

For the first time in years, they provided a holiday shop for families to get Christmas gifts for their kids, including some of those toys collected during the Fox 12 Les Schwab Tire Centers Toy Drive.

Thanks to all the donations, more than 35,000 toys and 14,000 stuffed animals were given to local nonprofits to help families like Brookelyn Gabler’s.

“A major Lego set, some makeup for my daughter, teething toys for the baby, arts and crafts stuff for the kiddos and some stuffed animals because they were just asking for some stuffed animals,” Gabler said.

She has five kids and said being able to shop for free at Children’s Home Society of Washington was a huge relief this holiday season.

“Things are tight for everyone right now and this is amazing to get the help,” Gabler said.

Live Love Northwest also welcomed 2,000 families to shop around for their little ones at Mannahouse Church in Northeast Portland.

Families were served a hot meal and had hundreds of gifts to choose from. They were grateful they’ll be able to give their kids gifts this year.

“We’re driving to California to visit my family and I don’t have the funds for anything else so this is literally his Christmas present, so it means so much to me,” Alyssa Bishop said.

Bishop was brought to tears over the community’s generosity.

“There’s a lot of bad out there so to just be reminded there are good people out there to help out, yeah, it just means a lot. And that they care about the kids, genuinely,” she said.

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