When Reed Marcum was little, he discovered that some kids in McAlester, Oklahoma, where he lived, had no toys beneath their Christmas trees.

Being a timid child who experienced bullying at school, Reed was used to feeling excluded, thus he was able to recall the event with great clarity.

The idea that his fifth-grade friend wouldn’t find anything under the tree was difficult to hear,

even if his parents split when he was just 7 years old. Nevertheless, there were others who stepped in to make Christmas time wonderful.

For whatever reason—his heart or his melancholy—he suggested to his mother that they arrange a toy drive with a format akin to the backpack drive they had managed the previous year.

Angie Miller, Reed’s mother, shared a video on Facebook outlining her son’s plans and solicited gift

donations or cash to purchase toys for a giveaway that Reed had chosen to carry out as a 4-H project.

Many individuals went out and purchased new toys to contribute, or they gave money for us to purchase them, Miller said. ‘There was a great response,’ Miller said.

That was all seven years ago, and even now, as a freshman in college, Reed still makes the two-and-a-half-hour trek home from his Stillwater campus to take part in the toy drive, which is in its sixth year.

This year’s drive-through giveaway is expected to provide 10,000 toys, with excited children in the rear seats

indicating to their parents which toy they choose. A pair of socks, underwear, pants, a shirt, gloves, and a cap are also given to each child.

‘We have walls of toys lined up on each side of the cars, and kids tell us which ones to grab as their parents drive them through the line,’

Reed, who studies prelaw and sociology at OK State University, told the Washington Post. ‘The best part is always witnessing the joyous expressions on their faces.’

To date, 54,000 toys have been distributed to children in McAlester, which regrettably has a 24% poverty rate based on global figures.

By launching more charity initiatives, Reed keeps carrying out what he believes to be a return favor for the generosity his family experienced more than ten years ago.

In addition to carrying on the backpack giveaways he began with his mother when he was just 11 years old, he organizes silent auctions to support children with cancer.

Everyone in the town wants to be involved with his work in some manner, according to a local who spoke with the Post. His actions have reportedly raised more than $3.5 million.