The following article appeared in the March 21, 2005 issue of People Magazine

Despite their fairly modest means. Robin Maynard Steele and her husband, Kevin, were passionate about giving to charity. But writing checks just wasn’t fulfilling. “We didn’t know if it was making a difference,” says Robin, 37. Then one day she visited a friend who ran a soup kitchen and she noticed a shelf set aside for bake mix so needy parents could make birthday cakes for their kids. It struck Robin that if a family couldn’t afford a cake, they certainly couldn’t afford a gift—so she went home and started making up gift bags of toys for kids.

“We dropped off the first bag on a Sunday night,” recalls Maynard Steele, a public relations assistant. (Kevin, 48,is a machinist who is on disability for a back injury.) “The next day I got a call from the [soup kitchen] operator. She said the woman who received the bag was in tears, she was so excited about the gifts.” That was 1993. The next year, after burning through $5,000 of their savings, the Maynards formed a nonprofit, Cheerful Givers, soliciting corporate donations and recruiting volunteers to buy, bag and deliver. Ten years later the group has distributed more than 100,000 bags to shelters, accounting for $1 million in stuffed animals, dolls and candy.

Their work is anonymous so children can believe their parents bought the gifts. “It would be impossible for many families to pull off a birthday without Cheerful Givers,” says Margaret Reindl of the Community Action Council of Lakeville, Minn. For the Maynards, it sure beats signing checks. “In a perfect world, all families would be able to afford gifts for their kids,” says Robin. “Until then we’ll put together the bags.”

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