If your campus building has ever been too hot or too cold, you’ve likely encountered Troy Zeigler. He’s an engineer in Facilities Services. He comes and fixes things.
And if you’ve ever found yourself on a mostly desolate campus on a Sunday afternoon in October when the leaves are changing, you might have seen Zeigler then, too. But instead of carrying a bulky toolbox, he’s delivering big cardboard containers to campus buildings to collect donations for McLean County Toys for Tots.
Zeigler is Illinois State’s version of Santa Claus.
Troy Ziegler, left, poses with Santa Claus at the Toys for Tots national convention this year.
Zeigler has volunteered with Toys for Tots for 32 years. He’s been director of the local branch of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots program for the past 12. A veteran of the Marine Corps who served from 1987-95 and still sports a military-style buzz cut, Zeigler was first pulled into the nonprofit by some Marine Corps friends. He’s never left.
“If you’re going to pick a charity and you want to deliver joy and make kids happy, then this is it,” he said. “We do a lot of fundraisers and events, and everyone in the room is a mom or a dad, an aunt or an uncle, a grandma or a grandpa. I tell them to close their eyes and think back to when they were a kid and got that special present. I ask them to remember the joy they felt, the reaction they had.
“And then ask them to think about doing that for 7,000 kids.”
Illinois State has played a supporting role in Toys for Tots’ success. This fall marks 25 years of offering collection boxes on campus. Illinois State’s Civil Service Council has supported the nonprofit for the past decade. Zeigler is a former council member.
“We’ve had some great years where we’ve collected a couple thousand toys and other years where it’s maybe been 300 or 400. It depends on the economy and how people are feeling. You never know,” he said. “The way I look at it, if we get 500 toys, that’s 500 more toys than we had before.”
Illinois State collection boxes will be deployed later this month to the Alumni Center, Hovey Hall, DeGarmo Hall, Milner Library, Moulton Hall, Nelson Smith Building, Office of Residential Life, and Uptown Crossing. Each box has a QR code printed on it to make a monetary donation as an alternative way to offer support.
Zeigler is often asked what types of toys or age ranges are most needed, but his advice is simple. “I just tell them that if they’re buying for their kids or grandkids, get one more and drop it in the box,” he said.
McLean County Toys for Tots collected and delivered 28,708 toys to about 7,100 local kids last year. The organization works closely with 10 local schools in three districts and seven social services agencies. Zeigler partners with the Salvation Army, which stores donations in a warehouse and hosts a “shopping” day when qualifying families come to pick out toys for their kids.
That’s when Zeigler gets to see his hard work pay off. The impactful stories are too many to count.
“You get to know the regulars. It’s pretty consistent from year to year. There’s a sweet lady who came in four or five years in a row, and a couple years ago she came in and gave me a big hug. I asked her how she was doing, and she told me she had come to volunteer. She no longer needed to use the program,” Zeigler recalled, pausing to hold back tears. “That’s the payback right there.”
“If you’re going to pick a charity and you want to deliver joy and make kids happy, then this is it.”
—Troy Zeigler
Beneficiaries of the program must be county residents, provide proof of income, and register for a shopping date and time to qualify for the program. But things come up, life happens, and Zeigler never turns anyone away.
A year or two ago, he got a call about a single mom with four boys. She hadn’t registered. Zeigler didn’t care. He told her to come on in.
“I asked her what her boys wanted, and she said Nerf guns. So, we started digging and found the four Nerf guns,” he remembered. “But we always have an area where we have the really big stuff, and I went and found one of those big Nerf guns with the round magazine that shoots those little balls. So, I handed her the four Nerf guns, and then I gave her the big one, and she said, ‘What’s this?’
“And I told her, ‘That’s to shoot them back!’”
There are other times when Zeigler follows people around the warehouse, watching them agonize over decisions as they’re choosing the three or four special toys for their children. Sometimes, Zeigler will pick up a toy someone has reluctantly placed back on the shelf and slip it into their bag as they check out.
He does it with a wink and a jolly smile just like another holiday hero.
“That’s just me playing Santa Claus,” Zeigler says.
More information about this year’s toy drive is available on the McLean County Toys for Tots website.
