The city of Sedona’s first holiday “Stuff the Bus” event, which took place at Posse Grounds Park on Tuesday, Dec. 6, in collaboration with Toys with Tots, turned out to exceed its organizers’ expectations.

“The goal is to fill a Sedona Shuttle bus with toys, which will then be distributed to Sedona families in need,” the city of Sedona announced in the run-up to the event.

The concept for the Stuff the Bus program came from city Transit Manager Robert Weber.

“It’s an idea that I imported over from California,” Weber said. “It’s done all over the country … I said, hey, we’ve got a bus now, so why don’t we give it a shot? So we called the Toys for Tots folks and they were all for it, and I think we’re going to surprise them here.”

The shuttle started its trip at City Hall, where it took on two boxes of toys collected by city of Sedona staff, and then received a police escort up the hill to Posse Grounds Park.

Transit grants analyst Savannah Sandoval, who had been on duty accepting toys since 10 a.m., estimated that around 50 people had showed up by 3:30 p.m. Five more arrived in the next half hour or so.

“It was pretty busy when we first started,” Sandoval said. “We had two big drop-offs. They were kind enough to pretty much fill their car and they came in.”

“I brought the things that I would want to play with, to be honest,” laughed Cynthia Hartmann of Sedona. “I had it on my calendar.”

“What I’ve seen before in these events is we’ll get a rush a little after five as people get off work,” Weber observed. “This has been pretty good for a town of, what, 8,600 people?”

“I wasn’t sure how the turnout would have been since we had a late start promoting our event,” Sandoval said. “Two weeks ago, we were like, ‘Whee, we’re gonna do this!’ Next year, we have the idea, we kind of have a game plan now.”

She mentioned that several people had been kind enough to bring her cookies, muffins and even a box of chocolate cupcakes.

“I’ll be all sugared up by the end of this,” Sandoval chuckled. She also received a few compliments on the antlers she was wearing for the occasion.

Karen Barrow, who, with her husband Leonard, is one of the local coordinators for Toys for Tots, spoke of how having access to the shuttle would simplify processing the toys they had received as well.

“Since our toy location is in the bank [the former Bank of America building] — it used to be at the school — when we bag up toys for West Sedona School, we were going to have to bring them up in pickups,” Barrow said. “I was worried that if the weather was bad … so the bus is going to come down there, we’re going to fill up the bus again with bags of toys, and they’re going to bring them back to West Sedona School and help us that way … The bus is going to be a big help.”

“We bag them by family,” Barrow explained of how the toy distribution process works. “They’re numbered and they have tags. So they go up on the stage, in order, and then the school office calls the families and they come pick them up.”

A few donations in particular have stood out for Barrow this holiday season.

“Somebody is filling the boxes up at the airport,” Barrow noted. “Two days after we put the box up the first week of November, somebody else called us and said it’s full. And it was full. And it’s been full several times.”

“We had a huge amount of toys come in from Seven Canyons Golf Resort,” she added. “They donated a bunch of bicycles.” Barrow estimated that they have received about 46 bicycles this year.

Barrow also mentioned that the Italian dinner fundraiser held by the Sedona Winds Retirement Center on Nov. 13 raised $1,600, enabling the organizers to go on a shopping spree at Walmart.

“The one little back room [at the bank] was completely stuffed with toys this morning,” Barrow said.

This is the ninth year of operation for Sedona Toys for Tots. They have between 30 and 35 volunteers this year, including a significant number who are new to the program. In 2021, they distributed 3,938 toys to 1,155 children.

“The community really came out,” Weber said. “Given what I’m looking at, I think we ought to try it again next year.”

He also has ideas for future expansion.

“If we get the visitors involved — now we’re talking!” Weber exclaimed. “I’ll get the whole fleet up here and fill it up.”