Toys for Tots struggles in pandemic Fewer events being held; toys still being accepted Tags: “You’d usually see probably about double this,” Jaramillo said. The annual holiday toy drive helps struggling families, and there’s no shortage of those this year. Jaramillo expects Toys for Tots will provide gifts over the next two weekends for even more than the 9,000 kids they did last year. Getting the gifts to do it, though - typically two toys per child - has been the problem. Many of the events from which Toys for Tots normally gets a good number of donations -- such as company Christmas parties where employees are invited to bring a gift -- were canceled or never planned at all because of the pandemic. In all, Jaramillo said there were just 23 events this year compared to about 53 last year.