Siblings Pay Mom's Magic Forward With Christmas Toy Drive

OAK LAWN, IL -- Growing up in a family of 11 children, nobody felt like a forgotten middle child, not as long as their mother was around. Barbara Aguirre passed away just before the holidays in 2009 from complications due to cancer. She fought a long hard battle and sheer stubbornness added years to her life. The first Christmas without their mom was glum, but the siblings pulled together as a family because that’s what their mother would have wanted.

“My mom was something else,” her daughter Andrea Aguirre said. “My sister came home with a good friend from kindergarten and never left. Her parents said ‘you can her, we just want the want the tax write-off.’ My mom took her in.”

Barbara’s children, who today range in age from 41 to 64, especially remember the magical Christmas mornings their mother created, walking into a living room with toys stacked from floor to ceiling. For their parents of modest means, they spent a small fortune on making sure each child in the family had presents, putting money aside throughout the year.

“It was important for our mom that every Christmas, even as adults, held something special for each of us,” her daughter said. “The most valuable gift for us was knowing that we were loved and that we had a mom that wanted to make sure that the magic of Christmas was there for us always.”

A year after their mother’s death, the children pulled together to honor their mother’s memory by creating the “Share The Magic Toy Drive Inspired by Barbara Y. Aguirre.” Since the toy drive’s inception in 2010, Barbara’s children have collected thousands of toys that are donated to children’s hospitals and shelters harboring women and children escaping domestic violence.

“Every Christmas we’d wake up and it was so magical,” Andrea Aguirre said. “It was like a toy store. She always tried to made Christmas into something magical so that’s how we came up with the name.”

This Saturday, Dec. 9, the Aguirre children will be collecting new, unwrapped toys, monetary donations and gift cards from 1 to 6 p.m. at the Johnson-Phelps VFW Post, 9514 S. 52nd Ave. (52nd Avenue and Yourell), in Oak Lawn. An unwrapped toy gets you in the door, $10 gets you some tasty food, including a lavish sweets table from Cakes by Frieda. Raffles and a cash bar are also featured.

The toy drive collects 800 toys annually, which are distributed to Advocate Children’s Hospital in Oak Lawn, LaRabida Children’s Hospital, Ronald McDonald Houses in Chicago and Northwest Indiana, St. Vincent de Paul/St. Bede’s Catholic Church, and the Crisis Center for South Suburbia. Barbara’s children selected the charitable organizations honoring their mother’s childhood roots in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood and in the Oak Lawn and Hometown area, where Barbara and husband Bernard raised their family.

Growing up, Andrea remembers her mother’s best friend and children staying overnight at her house. It wasn’t until years later at their mother’s wake when Andrea and her siblings learned that their mother’s friend was being physically abused by an alcoholic husband and sought safety in their home.

“That’s why we chose the Crisis Center for South Suburbia,” her daughter said. “It doesn’t surprise me about my mom, she was a kind soul who made everyone feel loved and special,” her daughter said. “She’d give the shirt off her back. She used to say ‘I may not have much, but children are my diamonds.”

The family is requesting new and wrapped toys and books for children from infancy through high school. Suggested items include games, Barbies, superhero figures, Matchbox cars and tracks, and craft kits. For teens, hats, scarves, toiletries and gift cards are recommended. People are asked to refrain from donating stuffed animals for allergy concerns, and toy weapons. Businesses are also welcome to drop off raffle prizes at the VFW post.

Each year the toy drive has gotten bigger. Old friends and new friends continue to turn out filling the VFW hall, keeping Barbara Aguirre’s memory vibrant and alive by making Christmas magical and hopeful for vulnerable children.

“Losing our mom right before the holidays in 2009 was devastating and the only way we got through it was by coming together as a family,” Andrea said. “We did so in the way that we knew mom would want us to and that was by being with each other. We truly felt her presence then and now.”

For more information visit the "Share The Magic Toy Drive Inspired By Barbara Y. Aguirre" Facebook page

Photo: The late Barbara Y. Aguirre | Family photo