This vet and real-life Santa makes wooden toys for kids every year

Blake Stilwell
Apr 29, 2020 4:02 PM PDT
1 minute read
Army photo

SUMMARY

Where the Marine Corps has its Toys for Tots, the Army can count on its elderly retirees – at least one of them, anyway. As of Christmas, 2019, Army veteran Jim Annis turned 80 years old. For the past 50 Christmas seasons, the former soldier spent…

Where the Marine Corps has its Toys for Tots, the Army can count on its elderly retirees – at least one of them, anyway. As of Christmas, 2019, Army veteran Jim Annis turned 80 years old. For the past 50 Christmas seasons, the former soldier spent months creating hundreds of wooden toys for children who otherwise might not have anything to open on Christmas morning. When the Salvation Army comes through for these families, Annis comes rolling along right behind them.


Annis spends hundreds of dollars from his own pocket every year to make wooden toys for needy children. The one-man Santa's Workshop spends much of his free time throughout the year crafting and painting these toys in preparation for Christmastime. By the time he's ready to donate the pieces to the Salvation Army, Annis has created as many as 300 toys, finished and ready to hand out to the little ones.

"When the Salvation Army gives out the food and clothes to people in this area, I give out my toys," Annis told Raleigh-Durham's ABC-11 affiliate. "It feels like you're sort of forgotten about at Christmas time."

In case you're bad at math, creating 300 toys per year for the past 50 years, makes for about 15,000 toys total. But for Annis, it's not about the money. He was one of those needy children during his childhood. He came from a working family with five children to take care for.

Jim Annis, a one-man Santa's Workshop.

(WTVD ABC-11)

Annis gets wooden scraps for free from homeowners and pays only for the tools of production and the acrylic paint for the toys. His costs run about id="listicle-2641673298",000 but his return on investment is the smiles of young kids who will get a toy for Christmas this year. Kids can get an array of cool, handmade toys, from fire trucks and dolls to piggy banks. Jim Annis will also make special gifts for American veterans and their loved ones.

"I have to sort of feel right in here," Annis told North Carolina's Spectrum News. "That's the joy I know I'm giving some of the kids, I'm giving them something that I didn't have a whole lot at Christmas time."

If you want to donate to materials to this vet's Christmastime cause, you can call Jim Annis at 919-842-5445.

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