Mom has collected 350,000 toys for needy kids

350,000 TOYS AND COUNTING | Orland Park mom has found her calling -- collecting gifts for needy children

The way Michelle Maxia sees it, you have two choices when things get tough.

"You're either gonna focus on the problem, or engage in the solution," says Maxia, of Orland Park. "I am about solutions."

One of her answers to life's inequities is an Orland Park warehouse filled with new and slightly used toys. In a year and a half, Maxia, 45, has distributed more than 350,000 toys to not-for-profit groups. Those groups gave the toys to thousands of needy children.

Puzzles, dolls, video-game systems, plastic kitchen setups -- all have paused to be polished and, if needed, repaired on their way from one child's hands to another's.

Toys have gone to homeless children, poor children, sick children, special needs children and children who have a parent serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Maxia, a mother of two and a former officer with the Cook County Sheriff's Department, opened the Toy Box Connection in June 2008. At the time, she was a stay-at-home mom trying to run Toy Swap, a Web site where parents could trade toys and games. But people kept asking if they could make donations.

"Finally, I had a light-bulb moment and looked up and said: 'I get it. You want me to take toys.' "

Friends, her husband, Mike, and her children, Jacob and Makena, helped her turn an empty warehouse into a toy wonderland. Then, Costco donated bins. Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Starbucks and Kohl's provided small grants or volunteers.

The toys come from churches and schools and various groups. They're distributed to nonprofit operations including Loyola Medical Center's Ronald McDonald House.

An event that reaffirmed Maxia's career choice and that "shook my body and my soul" was a party she held for 102 children from the Mooseheart orphanage.

At the end of the party, Maxia said she could tell the youngsters didn't want to leave. So she told them she had one more surprise.

"I yelled out, in Oprah and Ty [Pennington] fashion, 'Move that wall,' " Maxia says. Volunteers pushed away a makeshift wall to reveal 102 wrapped, supersized packages.

"That day changed my life," Maxia says.

Later, a 9-year-old boy approached Maxia and asked, "Why did you do this?"

"I told him, 'God sent me here to let you guys know he's thinking of you and that he's got your back.' "

The child then said, "I will never forget this day."

Maxia said she won't, either.

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