EDINBURG — A group of children climbed in and out of a U-Haul truck parked just outside the main entrance of South Texas Health System Children’s hospital Wednesday.
They unloaded large plastic bags and giant gift-wrapped cardboard boxes with toys. The bags were placed inside a large red wooden sleigh, but the toys quickly began to overflow.
“You’re gonna need a bigger room for this,” Lance Ames, the hospital’s CEO, quipped as he observed the vast amount of toys being unloaded — 804 toys to be precise.
The large donation was part of Isaac’s Angels, a campaign started by 12-year-old Isaac Garza of Mission. This marked half a dozen years that he has collected and donated toys to the children at the facility.
“They’ve been donating toys for six years to our children’s hospital, and it just means so much to all of our kids, all of our staff, to have someone that’s compassionate and just good like Isaac,” Ames said. “It definitely brings a sense of magic and hope when you’re a child in a hospital and you think you’re going to have the worst Christmas ever. Then here comes a bunch of toys from someone like Isaac. It really lifts their spirits.”
Garza was inspired to begin collecting and donating toys to the children’s hospital after having spent over a month there with Kawasaki Disease, which causes blood vessels throughout the body to become inflamed.
The disease led to two heart attacks, and he had to be airlifted to a hospital in San Antonio. During his time at the hospital, he made friends with some of the other patients. His mother, Laura, said he initially wanted to get presents for his friends, but then that idea grew to include everyone on his floor, and then the entire 14 floors.
“When I went to the hospital, when I woke up, I started receiving gifts from family and friends and doctors and nurses,” Garza recalled. “It made me feel really happy, so I wanted to give back.”
Garza was able to donate roughly 600 gifts the first year, and that number has increased every year since then. The 804 gifts donated Wednesday are not the only ones he planned to donate this year. He plans to buy and deliver more than 100 more with money from monetary donations.
“I’m proud of my work,” Garza said. “I’m glad that I do this. One day, I want to get to a thousand toys. I love spreading cheer and putting big smiles on a lot of people.”
Laura Gomez, Garza’s mother, said her son’s generosity was in large part due to the kindness he experienced while hospitalized in 2016. His campaign is his way of reciprocating that kindness.
“I do believe that it was just a sense of being a friend and taking toys back to his friends,” Laura said. “I honestly thought it was a one-time thing, but no — we do it every year. He’s still doing his toy drive and we’re going strong. I’m very proud of him. It’s magical. It really is.”
But like most things, it hasn’t been untouched by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Before COVID, we could go into the rooms and give the patients toys, and it was just the neatest thing,” she continued. “You could see the kids just light up. He let them pick a toy. We would have a cart full of toys, and we’d let them pick the toy that they wanted.”
And though staff are now in charge of distributing the presents, the gifts evoke the same feelings.
“It’s just wonderful,” Garza’s mother said. “For as long as we can, we’re going to do it.”
For more information and updates about the toy drive, visit the campaign’s Facebook page, Isaac’s Angels Toy Drive.
View Monitor photojournalist Joel Martinez’s full photo gallery below:
Photo Gallery: Mission 12-year-old has long donated hundreds of toys to ailing kids
