The season for smiles – Spectrum’s 2025 Toy Drive delivers joy

Imagine being seven years old, or even three or four. You’ve spent your early years in a refugee camp, waiting with your family for hope. You’ve travelled far from home, and started again in a new and unfamiliar place, here in Australia where you must learn a new language and live a new life. It’s an incredible challenge for anyone, much less a young child.

So can you imagine the joy of receiving a brand-new LEGO set, or a Barbie doll in her box? With nothing that you need to do except – have fun?

That was the scene this week during our annual Spectrum Toy Drive. Together with our generous community partners, we set out to bring fun to some of Melbourne’s newest residents – and provide a sense of welcome to their families, from all of us.

For families arriving in Australia, the priority is finding a home and a way to feed, clothe, and support their children. In the face of financial difficulty and social isolation, and in recovering from the difficult and often traumatic circumstances that led to their refugee journey, special treats like toys aren’t always a possibility.

For these children, who have already shown such bravery in starting over, a brand-new toy is a special moment they’ll remember forever.

It is a moment of joy, the promise of fun, and an opportunity to just enjoy being a kid.

“I can’t wait to go back home and build this LEGO with my sisters and brothers!”

Abel, age 7

This year, our Toy Drive was generously supported by donations from Gowrie Victoria, Uniting Vic.Tas, VicPol and Good Shepherd. Many of our staff offered toy donations from themselves and their families too, transforming our Dallas office into Santa’s toy workshop! While the work that our Settlement and Family Services teams do every day involves navigating complex challenges for newly-arrived families, this initiative gave us the chance to focus on something just as important – creating a sense of welcome, belonging, and joy.

From Barbies to baking kits, painting sets to Paw Patrol, Lego to board games – each toy was chosen with love for its little recipient.

“The Toy Drive is special to me because it brings so much joy to the kids and their families. It was really meaningful to have families come into the office to celebrate together and receive gifts for the kids and it’s a great reminder of why we do this work.”

Reham Ishag, Spectrum Intake Coordinator

As our Spectrum ‘elves’ spread some festive magic across Melbourne, inviting families to our office and in some cases personally delivering toys to little ones, there were shy smiles, giggles, happiness and even the overwhelm of having something special gifted, just for them.

One little boy was overcome with the positive energy! He charmed our office by blowing kisses to all of our staff members in farewell as he toddled homeward, proudly holding his new toys.

Our Toy Drive is always meaningful to our team, but perhaps even more so this year. In light of difficulty and division, we choose instead to turn towards building community.

It’s what we’ve been doing for 45 years at Spectrum Migrant Resource Centre, and what we’ll keep doing, alongside our communities and partner organisations.

We’d like to thank all of those who gave donations to our 2025 Spectrum Toy Drive, and helped spread joy for newly arrived families across Melbourne. The smiles on little faces tell you all you need to know about the happy memories you’ve helped create for some very special children this festive season.
___

Kelsey Dattoli, Communications Coordinator

Spectrum Migrant Resource Centre