It’s there in the Hallmark Vision statement—“We will be the company that creates a more emotionally-connected world….” It’s a promise echoed in the personal commitment of each Hallmark volunteer, as when Gladys Brown talks of giftwrapping toys for the children of prison inmates with the Salvation Army’s Prison Toy Lift program.

“I have two kids of my own,” Brown says. “It would be terrible not to be with them over the holidays. So it made me feel really good to help families stay connected when they couldn’t be together.”

Brown was one of ten volunteers on the planning committee that oversaw 300 Hallmark volunteers who wrapped more than 3,200 toys to brighten the lives of children whose parents are incarcerated.

Hallmark and the Salvation Army have enjoyed a long partnership, with nearly a third of products donated by Hallmark going to Salvation Army locations around the country. But 2010 was the first year Hallmark was asked to be involved in the Prison Toy Lift.

“The gifts arrived at the loading dock and we set up an assembly line in the sample department,” explains Brown, who works in Gift Presentation at Hallmark headquarters. “We had a wrapping station and a filling station to fill the orders.” For three days, working several hours a day, about 300 volunteers showed up to add a little magic to each child’s toy, using gift wrap and ribbon. The result was 1,142 boxes with 3,200 toys mailed out to children’s homes all across the nation.

“This was such a heartfelt ministry for everyone,” says Stephen Wheeler of the Salvation Army. “Anytime you work with Hallmark, the sense of partnership is amazing. You see it in every little touch, like the hand-written Hallmark card with the child’s name that went out with every toy. These kids knew their parents were thinking of them.”

And the emotional rewards for the volunteers were always in the air, too.

“It was an awesome feeling,” Brown says. “The other volunteers who worked on this told me how much it meant to them. Of all the volunteer work I’ve done, this was one of the best.”

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