SALISBURY — Over the past five years, Blue Collar Cycle Company has donated over $22,000 worth of toys to Powles-Staton Funeral Home’s Operation Toy Soldier. On Monday, over a dozen bicycles and other toys geared at older children received an escort from the business on Old West Innes Street to the funeral home.

The funeral home has run Operation Toy Soldier since 2015, said Powles-Staton Funeral Director Russ Roakes. In the first year, the organization received 250 toys, said Roakes, and that number has grown to thousands of toys every year between reaching out to area businesses and increasing participation. In the past nine years, Roakes said that the program had helped thousands of people, and while he did not have any statistics, he said that he imagined they would have touched over 10,000 lives by the end of the year.

Powles-Staton takes the donations from various businesses, organizations and people from around the area, with Roakes saying that 20 businesses allow him to set up barrels at their locations. Those donations are then distributed to elementary schools, churches and the N.C. National Guard as well as several families identified by the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office. Two people Roakes pointed out as having gone “above and beyond” in helping this year were Rockwell Police Department Sgt. Anna Reichert and Rowan County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Heather Bailey Garrison.

One of the businesses that has assisted for the past few years is Blue Collar Cycle Company, located at 1017 Old W. Innes St., Salisbury.

“We’re nothing more than a cog in the machine of Operation Toy Soldier. Without Russ and Powles-Staton, we wouldn’t have anywhere to drop these off, we wouldn’t have anybody to help,” said Brandon McNeely, owner of Blue Collar Cycle Company.

Blue Collar has participated in the program ever since they joined the community. McNeely said that he reached out to friends and other businesses in the community when he moved to the area looking for ways to get involved in the community. Brian Hunt with Man Made Barber in Salisbury connected him with Roakes and told him about Operation Toy Soldier five years ago, and every year since the company has donated toys.

“The Blue Collar family are amazing people and always giving back to the community,” wrote Roakes in an email.

This year, McNeely said that the company focused on donating gifts for older children this year, saying that too often with charity toy drives such as this, older kids can get forgotten.

“Older kids often get the short-end of the stick, it’s so much easier to shop for kids and babies,” said McNeely.

Roakes echoed that opinion, saying that in his experience with the program, donations for older children have typically been “a tough category to fill.”

The funeral home accepts donations for all ages and genders year-round, said Roakes, with current donations able to be dropped off at the home itself, located at 913 W. Main St., Rockwell. The barrels will go out to the partner businesses in late November.

A list of drop-off locations can be found at operationtoysoldier.com/operation-toy-soldier-drop-off/.