MARYSVILLE — Single mom Cally Ann Lewis needed to buy Christmas presents not only for her two daughters, ages 6 and 8, but also her 3-year-old granddaughter, whom she’s also raising.

“This Toy Store is just a blessing,” she said, as volunteers guided her through the shopping area of The Grove Church Dec. 17.

As she signed people in to go shopping, Rita Henry estimated that the Marysville Toy Store is on track to serve an estimated 350 families and more than 1,000 children this year.

After Dunn Lumber sold the building that’s served as the Red Curtain Arts Center, Henry and her fellow Toy Store volunteers were faced with the prospect of not having a space where families in need could shop for holiday presents, until The Grove Church stepped in.

“Not only has the church supplied numerous volunteers of their own, but they also did all the signage for this event,” Henry said. “We have more volunteers this year than we’ve ever had.”

In addition to the 20-plus volunteers from the church, and the nearly 30 volunteers from the Marysville Community Food Bank’s Toy Store Committee, representatives of the local Kiwanis, ECEAP and Head Start, and the Marysville Police Department, were on site Dec. 16-17, with police ensuring that the church’s parking spaces were used properly.

Those volunteers were needed to move in and sort all the toys and other gift items Dec. 14-15, as well as to prepare the space and make it presentable for shoppers.

Henry estimated that the Toy Store received $15,000 in financial donations this year, and couldn’t even begin to guess at how many toys and other gift items they got. The city of Marysville and the Marysville Fire District were the two largest financial contributors, although Henry admitted that she’s not sure which of the two would qualify for first or second place. Third place definitely goes to HomeStreet Bank for its contributions.

“The firefighters’ fill-the-boot collection drive goes to us, and that’s one of the largest sources of our monies,” Henry said, adding that “a good number of Marysville businesses” have chipped in between $500 to $1,000 each. “And the police even did a winter coat drive for us.”

Perhaps the most challenging age and gender demographic to shop for this year has been girls aged 8-12 — “Teens are usually the hardest,” Henry said — to the point that the Toy Store Committee is considering breaking that up into separate age categories.

“On the younger end, they want things that are more for little girls, but on the older end, they’d regard those sorts of presents as immature,” said Henry, before she praised the church and the community as a whole for their generosity. “We hope we can use these facilities again next year. They’ve just been great.”