Dozens of children crowded around retired Marine Maj. Chuck Kilbride in Levittown this week as he helped hand out toys to kick off Long Island's 2026 Toys for Tots drive, just a year after a stroke left him struggling to speak, read and write. The 73-year-old has run the regional campaign for more than three decades, and organizers say he has no intention of stopping now.
A Levittown Kickoff With Familiar Faces
The event, held Wednesday at Miller's Ale House in Levittown, brought U.S. Marines together with kids from Hempstead and across the region as the 2026 collection drive officially got underway, according to PIX11. Organizers told the outlet that more than 750,000 toys were collected last year for children across Long Island, a figure that stood out even against the campaign's long track record. Children gathered around Kilbride himself as he helped distribute toys, the station reported, with the retired major once again at the center of an effort he has shepherded for most of his adult life.
County government officials honored Kilbride on the same day, presenting him with citations and a lifetime achievement award recognizing his years of service to the Long Island campaign, per the same PIX11 report. He suffered a stroke in 2025, and the station noted he faced that health crisis along with a medical procedure over the past year. The stroke left him with aphasia, a condition affecting his speech, understanding, reading and writing.
Three Decades of Rallying Volunteers
Kilbride's connection to the cause goes back decades. He served 27 years in the United States Marine Corps, according to Mid Island Times, and for more than three decades he has partnered with the Marine Corps to lead the Long Island Toys for Tots campaign. The need for toys on Long Island has grown over the past three to four years, Kilbride has said, according to a report from News 12 Long Island, which also noted that close to 800,000 toys were distributed to children across the region during the 2023 holiday season. PIX11 reported that more than 750,000 toys were collected in 2025.
The scale of the campaign's reach has been documented elsewhere too. In 2023 alone, the Long Island drive reached more than 100,000 children in need, Mid Island Times reported. Nassau University Medical Center has also received hundreds of toys through the Nassau County Toys for Tots Program for pediatric patients and patients at Community Health Centers, according to a statement from Nassau University Medical Center.
Honored by the State and by Oyster Bay
On December 7, 2025, state Sen. Steve Rhoads formally inducted Kilbride into the New York State Veterans Hall of Fame, Mid Island Times reported. The Town of Oyster Bay has separately recognized the retired major for organizing its own Toys for Tots program, the outlet noted, a reminder that his reach extends well beyond any single kickoff event. Mid Island Times also reported that the drive carried particular weight during the pandemic years, when many Long Island families faced financial hardship.
The campaign's roots on Long Island trace back further still. The Nassau County version of the toy drive began in 2010, when the co-owners of Martino Auto Concepts in Glen Cove started a winter holiday toy drive in their parking lot, according to Liherald.com. That outlet reported the annual Nassau County event has since grown to collect more than 100,000 donated toys, with the U.S. Army and Marines working side by side in assembly lines to stock boxes bound for children locally and nationwide.
New Toys, Old Mission
At Wednesday's Levittown event, organizers kept the ask simple: a new, unwrapped toy, PIX11 reported. It is the same basic appeal that has anchored the drive since Kilbride first took it on, and one that has drawn in local chapters across the region. The CBS New York affiliate previously covered a comparable collection effort at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, where organizers gathered toys from 9 a.m. to noon on a Sunday for children 12 and under during an earlier edition of the drive. A separate Oyster Bay collection effort once brought in a record 31,000 toys in a single year, according to Mid Island Times.
For Kilbride, the health setbacks of the past year have not changed the basic calculus. He is still showing up, still standing beside Marines and volunteers at folding tables stacked with donated toys, and still drawing kids into a holiday-season ritual amid a growing need for toys on Long Island. The citations and lifetime achievement award he received this week, per PIX11, mark recognition for a campaign built one Levittown morning at a time.
