While Karen and Leonard Barrow only get the opportunity to see the smiles on the faces of the children whose lives they improve once a year when distributing bicycles, the effect of their actions can be felt throughout the year.

“The one real standout thing is I had a parent come up to me one time after they had gotten a bag of toys,” Leonard Barrow said. “They said they wanted to thank us because they didn’t know what they were going to do for their kids for Christmas this year. Things were so tight for them. We really don’t get to see the kids usually open up their packages. The only time we actually get to see them is when we distribute the bicycles And that pumps you up for them, for all the work that you put in that year.”

After a decade of serving as local coordinators for Sedona Toys for Tots, the Barrows are wrapping up their time in charge of the charity initiative for personal reasons. However, they will remain active in the community and Karen Barrow will continue to serve as the secretary of Sedona Area Veteran and Community Outreach.

“I’ve been telling everybody I talk to: They are complete pillars of the community,” said Angela Thomas, the couple’s successor, “They’ve lived in Sedona since the 1970s, and they were both teachers at the local schools for years, retired from that and then still needed to give more. It’s just amazing who they are … That’s inspiring enough, we should give them the key to the city.”

Thomas said that seeing a Toys for Tots collection box three years ago while missing her son, who is assigned to Okinawa as a Marine, was what first inspired her to join the program.

“I’ve just loved organizing it and providing something special for the kids,” Karen Barrow said. “We had two volunteers today and one of them said he came from a large family of six kids and he was the youngest. He said ‘Sometimes not everybody got something at Christmas time because they just didn’t have enough.’ So it’s important to make sure that kids know that people in this community care about them.”

Planning typically begins in August or early September, giving the couple time to coordinate with vendors that can provide cases of toys at wholesale prices, while administrative work continues into the middle of January.

“We basically order for the oldest children, for 11- to 14-year-olds, because we don’t get that many donations for [that age group],” Karen Barrow said.

The couple also spent Monday, Dec. 4, shopping for toys and bicycles with $3,020 raised by the Sedona Winds Retirement Community’s Italian dinner fundraiser.

“There’s a lot of groups that we work with. The food banks and St. Vincent DePaul and the schools coordinate and get all the names from them, so organization is huge,” Karen Barrow said.

“We have a group of people that are dedicated to help and if you can keep them organized, you won’t have much problem at all,” Leonard Barrow said. “We’ve got an unbelievably good crew of people helping us.”

“Not just [that] we have a good crew of volunteers, but the whole community is behind us,” Karen Barrow said. “We’ve got businesses calling us if they if they don’t get a box, and they want a box, or they call us and they say, ‘We’ve got toys, where can I take them?’ I had a call this morning and somebody had toys and books and wanted to know where to take them. We get donations. We work hard, but the support [from the community] is there.”

The Barrows have been supporting the community of Sedona since 1973,when Leonard Barrow was hired to teach at West Sedona School.

“I started out teaching sixth grade, then I had a split class for a couple of years of fifth- and sixthgraders,” Barrow said. “I went to junior high, was teaching science and history. Since I was about the only man on the staff, physical education in  the high school — I was athletic director, dean of students and taught U.S, Arizona history, world history, mock trial and weight training.”

“I taught school in Cottonwood and I didn’t start teaching until about 1987,” Karen Barrow said. “Before that I was a Girl Scout leader and neighborhood director for Girl Scouts, and we had two kids, so that kept us busy. [Leonard] retired from teaching in 1999 and I retired at the same time. So we’ve been involved with community activities ever since.”

The couple met in July 1969 on Fort DeRussy Beach in Hawaii.

“I went to Hawaii to go to summer school to the University of Hawaii,” Karen Barrow said. “Leonard was stationed at Camp Smith as a Marine. He had already been to Vietnam at that point and he was going to be getting out in February … and we got married in 1970.”

“I was on the Hawaii Marine baseball team there in the last year I was in the Marine Corps,” Leonard Barrow said. “They sent me over to play baseball for them. We were supposed to [have] a game that evening and the other team couldn’t come from another kind of a transportation problem. So Karen and I went over to the Waikiki Shell to watch Bill Cosby.”

Residents can drop off new unopened toys at local Sedona Toys for Tots drop boxes until Thursday, Dec. 14. To make an online donation or for more information, visit sedonaaz.toysfortots.org.

“I’m very excited. I’m a little terrified that I can’t fill their shoes,” Thomas said. “But they’re still going to be around and they’ll be able to help me, teach me. I just don’t want it to fail. I want it to keep growing the way that they’ve been able to keep it up.”