Retired Couples Labor of Love: Wooden Toys for Kids

For over a decade now, Mike and Judy Sullivan have been making wooden toys in their workshop and giving them away free at Christmas and throughout the year to any parent needing a toy to give to their child on Christmas morning, for a birthday, or for any occasion to brighten a child's day. Mike and Judy are both retired and now in their 70s and spend each day going out to the shop in the morning where Mike cuts, shapes, and sands the wooden toys, and Judy assembles and paints them. They spend most of the day every day making toys and boxing them for one very special day each year.

Started in 2013 when this retired couple wanted to do more to help parents struggling in today's economy, Mike and Judy saw the joy and excitement their wooden toys brought to their grandchildren and decided to make more toys. That first year, they made over 800 wooden toy trucks, cars, planes, and doll cradles to give to a local charity. The following years, the numbers kept going up. In 2023, they donated over 2,000 toys to various charities, churches, and families.

Each year, Mike and Judy seek out donations for wood from their woodworking club, getting wood, tires, pegs, and dowels to make the toys. Mike would also visit construction sites in the area and ask for their scraps to make toys. Everything else they pay for out of pocket: the paints, stuffed animals, and dolls that often accompany the doll cradles and furniture, the paint brushes, stencils, etc.

This year, their goal is to reach even more children.