Christmas in July vendor fair in Murphysboro benefits Toys for Tots

MURPHYSBORO, Ill. (KBSI) – It’s a vendor fair and a toy drive wrapped into one…more specifically, a vendor fair benefitting Toys for Tots. 

Organizer Alexandria Myers and Toys for Tots Assistant Coordinator Skip Cosgrove both said this Christmas in July vendor fair gives the organization an early start to helping kids this Christmas. 

“Doing Christmas in July this early helps to assist Toys for Tots in being able to buy more presents earlier on, and it just gets them jumpstarted on this Christmas season,” Myers said.

“This time of the year it helps so that we know what we’re looking at, what our needs are, and monetary and physical donations are really beneficial because it gives us an idea of what we have in inventory and what we need,” Cosgrove said.

Myers said she has done several vendor fairs, but this is her first one that includes a charitable aspect. 

She said having a child of her own makes this cause mean a little bit more.

“Having a little one, it adds a certain appeal to being able to help other kids, too,” she said.

Cosgrove has been volunteering with Toys for Tots for nearly 20 years, and while this type of fair is a first for him in his time with the organization, there is a common thread between almost any fundraising event and toy drive he participates in. 

“Almost always when we have an event where we’re trying to raise money or gather toys or whatever the case might be, we’ll have someone come up to us and say, ‘When I was a kid, if it wasn’t for Toys for Tots, I wouldn’t have had a Christmas,’ so that kind of makes you justify what you’re doing,” Cosgrove said.