By Tatum Todd
oregonlive.com
PORTLAND, Ore. — This wasn’t what Dean Johnston had expected to find in the basement of Portland’s Fire Station 1.
Before him he saw rows and rows of tall, wooden shelves lining the 100-foot-long room. Firefighters moved through the stacks, sorting inventory, checking to make sure everything was in its proper place.
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But the items on the shelves weren’t firefighting equipment. They were donated toys – hundreds of them. It was the holiday season, and the firefighters were preparing to deliver the toys to struggling families.
That moment – Johnston’s first time in the fire station’s basement – happened in 1972, but Johnston, now 80, still remembers the scene vividly. It would turn out to be a turning point for him.
“It kind of amazed me, and what I really found out was how much the firefighters cared about doing this,” Johnston told The Oregonian /OregonLive.
Johnston, who was married and had three young daughters at the time, soon discovered he cared about doing it too.
“It made me feel good going down there and sorting toys,” he said.
He also helped repair broken toys and buff up ones that needed a new shine.
He’d ultimately take over the whole operation, which is called Toy & Joy Makers. Portland Fire & Rescue’s firefighters have been running the toy drive since 1914.
Johnston, who joined the fire bureau in 1968, first started helping out with the program after he got transferred to Station 1. Between calls, he’d spend part of his shift in the basement, repairing and organizing toys.
He quickly developed a passion for it, and in 1972 he was tasked with working on Toy & Joy fulltime during the runup to the holidays — an assignment that called for 40 hours a week of paid time with the program as a clutch of firefighters worked alongside civilian volunteers to get the toys out on time.
When it wasn’t the holiday season, Johnston returned to typical firefighter duties – fighting fires, rescuing people in danger.
He’s not sure whether he holds the fire bureau record for injuries, but Johnston said there have been several times when “my enthusiasm was there, but I lacked the skill.’’
In the 1970s he broke his ankle seven times in three years.
Off-duty mishaps followed.
He gave up motor sports, a longtime passion, after a racing accident. And he lost an eye playing handball.
The list of injuries became so long that on one extended detail, the orders went out for Johnston to drive the fire truck – his specialty – and do absolutely nothing else. “The captain told the lieutenant, ‘Do not let Dean Johnston out of that truck,’” he recalled with a laugh.
In spite of all the injuries, he loved being a firefighter, Johnston said. He enjoyed helping people, as well as the feeling of camaraderie he and his fellow firefighters had, which was similar, he said, to being in the army. He’d been a helicopter mechanic in Vietnam.
That feeling of satisfaction from his work, and of being part of something bigger than himself, continued with Toy & Joy.
Johnston became Toy & Joy’s director in the 1980s, and under his leadership the program grew from an operation that served hundreds of families a year to one that served thousands. When he retired from the fire bureau in 1996, he decided to continue volunteering with the charity, taking on the role of president of the organization’s board.
In May, the same month he stepped down as board president, Portland fire’s interim chief, AJ Jackson, awarded Johnston a ribbon of merit for his work, stating that he “exemplified Toy & Joy’s mission statement of ‘promoting the spirit of giving by helping children and their families in our community during the holiday season.’”
Last Wednesday, the fire bureau threw a party for Johnston to commemorate his decades of service to the program.
And as it turns out, Johnston’s connection to Toy & Joy actually started long before he walked into the basement of Fire Station 1 in 1972.
Johnston’s father abandoned the family when Johnston and his twin sister were only 2-years-old, and his mother struggled financially. After Johnston had spent years working with the fire bureau’s toy drive, he was visiting his elderly mother one day when she admitted it was thanks to Toy & Joy that she’d managed to put gifts under the Christmas tree when he and his sister were little.
“I guess it’s a full circle of life,” he told The Oregonian /OregonLive. “I got some, and I’ve been giving back ever since.”
He said that while Toy & Joy primarily gives out toys during the holidays, the work of sourcing, packaging and organizing toys happens behind the scenes for months before the holidays. The group also donates toys year-round, such as when families are displaced by disasters or a parent has to leave home with children to escape domestic violence.
Shortly after Johnston retired in the mid-’90s, Portland fire appointed firefighter Pat McMahon as a liaison between the bureau’s management and Toy & Joy’s civilian volunteers. McMahon told The Oregonian /OregonLive that he was surprised when he checked out the outfit’s operations for the first time in 2001.
“It was like, ‘Oh wow, this is a well-thought-out, well-processed machine,’” McMahon said.
McMahon described Johnston as a leader with a calm communication style who could “get everybody to work together to achieve our common goal.”
All these years later, Johnston’s passion for the program continues. He’s not board president anymore, but he’s still volunteering at Toy & Joy.
“I still go in for a few days (a week),” he said. “But I’m starting a new decade, so it’s time to pass the torch.”
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