When a Dover toy bank flooded, help poured in
Sep. 1—On a day when terrible news was dominating the headlines, employees of a Seacoast business joined efforts to bring some joy to needy children — and a little hope to their community.
Matt Barker was looking online Thursday for news about a reported shooting on a bridge over the Piscataqua River when he spotted a post about an annual toy drive run by the Dover professional firefighters union. A burst pipe had led to the loss of everything the firefighters had collected in the toy bank for the upcoming holiday season.
Barker, the general manager at McGovern Toyota of Portsmouth, texted his company's vice president, Zac Casey, and told him he wanted to buy toys for the toy bank. McGovern Auto Group had purchased the dealership in April and company leaders have encouraged employees to embrace community service, Barker said.
"Love it," his boss texted back.
So Barker called up Tim Hall, his counterpart at McGovern Subaru in Newington, and invited him on a trip to Walmart in Newington.
There, the two men grabbed shopping carts and started loading them up. "This isn't going to hold nearly the amount of toys we want to get," Barker told Hall.
They asked store employees if they had a pallet they could use and the employees, who also had heard about the ruined toys in Dover, were happy to help, Barker said. They offered them a pallet of toys that hadn't made it to the store shelves yet.
Then, Barker said, "We basically just went down the aisles. We filled three pallets and four shopping carts."
Barker has a daughter who turns 6 in November and a son who just turned 3. As he walked the toy aisles, he said, "I was kind of looking for stuff I knew my kids would like."
Hall and Barker split the $6,000 cost between their two dealerships, loaded up their vans, and dropped off the toys at a Dover fire station.
Mike Kilday, a firefighter/paramedic for Dover Fire Department, said the holiday toy drive was started by a firefighter named Chuck Mone in the late 1970s. "He'd pick up toys and hand-deliver them, dressed up as Santa, to children in the city," he said.
Over the years, other firefighters took on the project and it grew into the current toy bank. Families apply for toys through the city welfare department, which passes the information on to the fire department.
The toy bank is stored in a donated space on the bottom floor of a downtown mill building, Kilday said. When a pipe burst on Aug. 4, "It all leaked down below."
They estimated the value of the ruined toys around $40,000.
They did not have insurance. "We will going forward," Kilday said.
Kilday, who has been with the Dover department for 10 years, said the response to the flooding incident has been "inspiring."
"We aren't the ones that usually ask for help," he said. "It's wild, the positive feedback that we've gotten, so many people dropping off toys, money, checks."
Kilday said the response "just goes to show you how great the city of Dover is. When we asked for help, they definitely came through."
Word of the toy bank's plight has been spreading on social media, with other New Hampshire fire departments, local businesses and residents collecting donations.
"It's amazing to see," Kilday said.
Barker from McGovern Toyota said he drove home that day feeling happy. "There's not that many times you get to just shop and get a million toys," he said.
He was thinking about the kids who will be on the receiving end of all this community love and support. "I would hate to be in a position where they weren't going to have a Christmas," he said. "As a parent, all we want to do is give our kids good lives."
Monetary and toy donations can be dropped off at Dover Fire Department, 262 Sixth St. Checks also can be made out to "Dover Firefighters Charitable Association" (include "toy bank" in the memo line), and mailed to DPFFA, P.O. Box 1004, Dover, NH 03821.
