Toy Rescue Mission

How We Serve

Toy Rescue Mission serves the community in several ways. First and foremost our mission is to provide toys at no cost to needy children at their special time of the year, be it a birthday gift, an Easter basket or at Christmastime.

In addition we provide school supplies to parents upon request as long as they last. Keep in mind that this program is seasonal and is open the month of July through the first week of school for those in Pierce County.

Our donation program allows families to recycle good previously owned toys that might go to landfills or programs where the toys are sold. Since we are a 501c3, donations may even be tax deductible to the donor. We gladly accept new toys and gifts.

Our volunteer programs allows us to help the community as well. We offer opportunities to high school and college students that are required to serve and to those seniors or stay at home adults with free time. Many of our retired volunteers welcome the chance to have a place to go to use learned skills to help those in need. In recent years we have joined forces with Helping Hands of King County and a few other agencies to provide a place for those with minor offenses of the law to complete their court ordered community service.

Finally we are proud to partner with Phoenix Housing Network and Project Homeless Connect where we provide a variety of services directly benefiting homeless families. Please feel free to contact us for more information of any of the ways we offer services to our community.

Who We Serve

TRM Zip Codes Served

Low income children birth to 15. Ages vary by program (Click the program above for specifics)
Seniors in assisted living facilities and nursing homes
Some minor offenders of the law that need to perform court ordered community service
Schools, daycares and churches with targeted low income programs
Companies with volunteer match programs
United Way of Pierce County
Project Homeless Connect, Pierce County
Social service agencies with outreach programs for low income

Toy Rescue Mission holds to a high standard. Our volunteers work diligently to ensure that the toys we distribute are clean and safe. However, TRM cannot guarantee the toys that it distributes. Please take some time to review our Release of Liability Form. For the latest recall information, please visit the Consumer Product Safety Commission. (buttons below)

Safety Disclosure
Consumer Product Safety Commission

Environmental Impact Statement Of TRM's Reuse/Refurbish/Recycle Projects

Source for information:
City of Tacoma, Public Works Department

Reduced Air Emissions and Waterborne Wastes

Since 1995, TRM has recycled (refurbished) over 300+ TONS of toys!!

To reach this determination, TRM volunteers weighed 5 large (heavy), 5 medium, and 5 small TRM toys and averaged those figures to arrive at the average weight of 3.5 lbs per TRM toy. This weight was multiplied by the total number of toys distributed by Toy Rescue Mission over the past 14 years (over 139,000 toys).

Using these statistics (for one year), we were able to calculate the following information entered into a recycling formula provided by the City of Tacoma (www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-resources/calculator.html). We were then able to calculate that TRM saves enough greenhouse gasses (CO₂ emissions) from being emitted to equal:

8 cars off the road (or 4,737 gal. of gasoline not consumed), or
97 barrels of oil consumed, or
Electricity to power 5.5 houses per year.
Our recycling rate is at 84.2%. This equates to:
- Savings of 41.7 metric tons of air pollution not emitted
- Savings of .2 tons of water saved
- Savings of 4,020 resources saved.
TRM collaborates with approximately 75 non-profit agencies in the Tacoma/ Pierce County area to "reuse" (restored, refurbished, redistributed)! Our used toys are sorted according to three categories:
- First Quality = Gift Quality (used, but able to be restored to "like new"
- Second Quality = Still usable, but not gift quality. These items are sent to agencies to use on-site in recreation rooms, etc. We did NOT determine the recycling benefit from these toys, as we do not keep track of these donations. Based on estimation, our recycling figures could easily be doubled if these toys were added to our calculations!
- Third Quality = toys that are broken beyond repair, missing essential parts, or otherwise damaged and not able to be restored for use. These are parted-out and usable pieces are saved and reused on other toys.