After five decades working on toy drive, 80-year-year retired Portland firefighter has more to give

Dean Johnston had not anticipated discovering this in Portland’s Fire Station 1 basement.

The chamber was 100 feet long, and he could see rows and rows of tall, wooden shelves lining it. As they went through the stacks, firefighters sorted merchandise and made sure everything was in its right position.

However, none of the things on the shelf were firefighting supplies. Hundreds of gifts were donated to them. The firefighters were getting ready to distribute the presents to low-income families over the holiday season.

Johnston, who is now 80 years old, can still clearly recall the sight from his first visit to the fire station’s basement in 1972. For him, it would prove to be a pivotal moment.

Johnston told The Oregonian/OregonLive, “I was kind of amazed, and what I really learned was how much the firefighters cared about doing this.”

Married and with three small girls at the time, Johnston quickly found that he was interested in doing it as well.

“Going down there and sorting toys made me feel good,” he added.

He also assisted in buffing up toys that required a new sheen and fixing broken ones.

In the end, he would assume control of the entire business, Toy & Joy Makers. Since 1914, firemen from Portland Fire & Rescue have been organizing the toy drive.

When Johnston was assigned to Station 1 after joining the fire department in 1968, he began assisting with the program. He would spend a portion of his shift fixing and arranging toys in the basement in between calls.

His enthusiasm for it grew rapidly, and in 1972 he was assigned to work on Toy & Joy full-time in the lead-up to the holidays. This assignment required 40 hours of paid time with the program each week while a group of firefighters and civilian volunteers collaborated to deliver the toys on schedule.

When it wasn’t the holidays, Johnston went back to his regular firefighting duties, putting out fires and saving lives.

Johnston stated there have been multiple occasions when my zeal was there but I lacked the necessary skills, but he is unsure if he holds the fire bureau record for injuries.

He shattered his ankle seven times in three years in the 1970s.

Off-duty accidents ensued.

After a racing accident, he gave up motorsports, which had been his lifelong love. And while playing handball, he lost an eye.

The list of wounded got so extensive that Johnston was ordered to do nothing except drive the fire engine, which was his expertise, during one extended detail. The lieutenant remembered, laughing, that the captain had warned him, “Do not let Dean Johnston out of that truck.”

Johnston said he liked being a firefighter despite all the injuries. In addition to enjoying assisting people, he claimed that the sense of camaraderie he and his fellow firefighters had was comparable to that of being in the army. In Vietnam, he had worked as a helicopter mechanic.

With Toy & Joy, he maintained the sense of fulfillment from his work and belonging to something greater than himself.

In the 1980s, Johnston took over as director of Toy & Joy, and under his direction, the organization expanded from serving hundreds of families annually to serving thousands. After retiring from the fire department in 1996, he chose to stay involved with the charity as a volunteer and became the board president.

Portland Fire’s interim chief, AJ Jackson, gave Johnston a ribbon of merit for his efforts in May, the same month he resigned as board president. Jackson said that Johnston embodied Toy & Joy’s mission statement, which is to “promote the spirit of giving by helping children and their families in our community during the holiday season.”

The fire bureau celebrated Johnston’s decades of devotion to the program with a party last Wednesday.

As it happens, Johnston’s relationship with Toy & Joy began even before he entered Fire Station 1’s basement in 1972.

When Johnston and his twin sister were just two years old, their father left the family, and his mother was having financial difficulties. When Johnston was visiting his elderly mother one day after years of working with the fire department’s toy drive, she revealed that Toy & Joy had helped her put presents beneath the Christmas tree when he and his sister were young.

He told The Oregonian/OregonLive, “I suppose it’s a full circle of life.” I’ve been giving back ever since I received some.

According to him, Toy & Joy mostly distributes toys around the holidays, but months before the holidays, the labor of finding, packing, and arranging toys takes place in the background. Throughout the year, the organization also provides toys to families affected by natural catastrophes or when a parent must leave the house with children to flee domestic abuse.

Firefighter Pat McMahon was hired by Portland Fire shortly after Johnston’s retirement in the mid-1990s to serve as a liaison between the bureau’s administration and the civilian volunteers at Toy & Joy. When McMahon first visited the group’s operations in 2001, he was taken aback, he told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

“This is a really well-designed and well-processed machine,” McMahon remarked.

Johnston, according to McMahon, was a leader who could persuade everyone to cooperate in order to accomplish our shared objective.

Johnston’s enthusiasm for the program remains unwavering even after all these years. Although he is no longer the board president, he continues to volunteer at Toy & Joy.

He stated, “I still go in for a few days (a week).” However, it’s time to pass the torch as I begin a new decade.

Crime, public safety, and local news are all topics covered by breaking news reporter Tatum Todd. You can contact them at 503-221-4313 or ttodd@oregonian.com.

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