Spirit of giving
4-year-old sells his toys to donate to Toys for TotsCasey Draper, 4, of Tuba City is seen selling his toys at the Tuba City flea market. Draperdecided to sell his toys and use the money to make a donation to Toys for Tots. Courtesy photo

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Karen Francis
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — A 4-year-old boy from Tuba City has made a generous donation to help others have a merry Christmas.

While most kids are making their wish lists for the holidays, Casey Draper decided to sell all his toys and donate the money to the Toys for Tots program on the Navajo Nation.

In a telephone interview, Casey said he sold his toys to give money to Santa.

Casey is donating $179.50 to the Toys for Tots program, and the Navajo Police officers are grateful for any donation that comes to the program.

Ophelia Begay, senior corrections officer and volunteer with the Toys for Tots program on Navajo for 18 years, said this was the first time she heard of a young boy selling his toys to donate to the program.

“If we receive the money, most likely we will use it to get more toys,” she said.

The story began when Draper and his mother Myra were cleaning his play room to get ready for Christmas.

“His birthday comes in February so I told him you have to get rid of some of these toys,” Myra said.

“It just got so much where you could barely see,” she said about Casey’s collection of toys.

“I told him we’re just going to take all these toys out to the flea market and whatever money we get from that you can buy yourself a special Christmas gift,” she said.

Draper began making a list to buy presents for family members with the money he would get from selling off his toys.

That changed on the night of Dec. 3 when he saw a Toys for Tots commercial on television.

“He said, ‘Mom why don’t I just give all my toys to them?’”
Myra, who used to work with the program years ago, explained to her son that Toys for Tots only accepts brand new, unused toys and he couldn’t donate his toys.

Apparently, the young boy did not forget the commercial.

A few days later, on Friday morning, they started loading up the truck with the toys to sell at the flea market.

After he brushed his teeth, Casey had a suggestion for what to do with the money from his toy sale.

“He said, ‘Mom I have a great idea,’ and then I said, ‘What is that?’ And then he said ‘Why don’t we unsell all my toys and we can ungive the money to Santa so he can ungive all these kids some toys,’” Myra said. He is at a stage where he includes “un” before some words, she said.

“I didn’t think anything like that would cross a little 4-year-old’s mind,” she said.

They then went to the flea market to sell the toys.

“We were still unloading the truck and people just flocked,” she said.

Within two hours nearly all the toys — including dump trucks and art easels — were gone.

Over the weekend, the family went to Tucson and Myra thought her son might have changed his mind about donating the money but that didn’t happen.

“He said, ‘Where can we get the address to the North Pole?’” she said laughing.

“He made a list of all the people he wanted to buy presents for and instead of that, in his mind he thought, ‘Well there’s people out there that can’t have Christmas or don’t have Christmas,’” Myra said. “It practically brought tears to my eyes when he brought that up. I thought how in the world did he know? I couldn’t believe someone his age would think of doing something like that.”

Wanting to keep the money on the reservation, Myra contacted the Navajo Nation Toys for Tots and explained what her son wanted to do. She got the proper address to send a cashier’s check, which she planned to do Wednesday.

“My husband and I we were really surprised,” Myra said about her reaction to her son’s wish to donate money.

But giving has been a family tradition, she said. Her mother used to hold a dinner for disadvantaged families for the holidays. Her oldest son volunteers at a soup kitchen.

“We try to encourage that with our kids,” Myra said.