About Us
Our mission
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Our mission
Our children are our most precious commodity! They are our future in government, corporate management, education, skilled trades, family and a myriad of societal cohesion and social progress in general. In short, our children are the very fabric of the world's future!
While we recognize that children of all ages face tremendous challenge
Our children are our most precious commodity! They are our future in government, corporate management, education, skilled trades, family and a myriad of societal cohesion and social progress in general. In short, our children are the very fabric of the world's future!
While we recognize that children of all ages face tremendous challenges and needs that require community and government assistance, we choose to, (but do not limit), our focus and efforts on elementary age children, as these children are the most vulnerable and the most innocent among us!
The mission of "Tools-4-Tots" is to find and lend a helping hand to these "most vulnerable" children with cloths, school supplies, footwear and anything else that we can muster the resources for to keep their childhood innocent and care free!
Our history
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Our mission
Founded in 2010 in Hawaii in conjunction with the founder's "Toys-4-Tots" partnership with the United States Marines, the Salvation Army and other corporate sponsors, "Tools-4-Tots" took on a life of it's own! With the low income immigrant population growing in the islands, the need for assistance was overwhelming. In addition to schoo
Founded in 2010 in Hawaii in conjunction with the founder's "Toys-4-Tots" partnership with the United States Marines, the Salvation Army and other corporate sponsors, "Tools-4-Tots" took on a life of it's own! With the low income immigrant population growing in the islands, the need for assistance was overwhelming. In addition to school supplies and cloths, we were mortified to learn that footwear was such a major issue in the schools as many children did not own Federally approved footwear and could not enter the cafeteria to partake in their free or low cost lunch programs. It broke our hearts to learn that young children without shoes would line up outside the cafeteria and wait for a friend or fellow classmate to eat first, then loan them their footwear so that they could go in and eat. With this knowledge, we began an outreach program with the public as well as corperate sponsors to include age and gender appropriate footwear with each care package that we provided.
In 2019, "Tools-4-Tots" filed with the Arizona Corporation Commission and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service for 401-C3 non-profit status to continue our mission.
While the pandemic of 2020 interrupted our efforts, we are once again gearing up to further our mission.
Want to help or need assistance?
Want to help or need assistance?
Want to help or need assistance?
Want to volunteer or support our mission as an individual, community group or with a corporate sponsorship? Or, maybe you manage an organization or sponsor children in need and could use our resources. PLEASE reach out and let us know.
We also have a special affinity for the needs of children and their care givers in "Foster Care" progra
Want to volunteer or support our mission as an individual, community group or with a corporate sponsorship? Or, maybe you manage an organization or sponsor children in need and could use our resources. PLEASE reach out and let us know.
We also have a special affinity for the needs of children and their care givers in "Foster Care" programs and orphanages. If you are fostering a child, (of any age), in the foster care program or are connected to an orphanage, (in any country), and need assistance, PLEASE do not hesitate to contact us!
Contact: jake@tools4tots.org
About the founder
The founders story...
In 1979, Jake Jacobus graduated boot camp at the U.S. Naval Recruit Training Command in San Diego and was assigned to the USS Lynde McCormick DDG-8, (a Destroyer), stationed in San Diego. The ship's Chaplain, (with the full support of our ship's captain), sponsored an orphanage run by Catholic nuns in a small Mexican village south of the border. The orphanage was under a 90 day order to close due to a lack of Mexican government standards of "health and welfare", or, make necessary improvements. Our ship and it's crew stepped up!
During the following weeks, our ship's "health and welfare" account paid for the necessary materials and the ship's crew members volunteered trucks to haul the materials and the man power to do the work. In the end, we dug them a new fresh water well, built them a complete kitchen and bathrooms, and put a new roof on the existing buildings and class rooms. The Mexican government inspected and approved the upgrades and the orphanage was allowed to continue.
Those of us that had spent months traversing cobble stone roads to reach this village on our time off to complete the project held a "Grand Re-Opening" following the government approval.
We brought food and toys, and soccer balls, and cloths, and held a big celebration and BBQ for the children. There was so much joy, and happiness on the faces of those children, as well as the nuns and the rest of us volunteers for what we had accomplished, that the seed was planted in my heart for all time!
While serving overseas on extended deployment in 1982, our ship was deployed to Suva, Fiji in the aftermath of a typhoon. For eight weeks, flatbed trucks would line up on the pier and crew members from our ship would choose a truck to jump on that would take them to an unknown place in dire need of help! Our ship's crew deployed medical and dental teams as well as reconstruction teams throughout the coast.
I think it would be safe to say that which ever truck an individual crew member jumped on from day one, each of us stuck with that same truck to the same place every day to continue helping those that needed our help. I ended up on a truck each day that took us to an elementary school to rebuild a roof that had blown off. The entire experience was life afirming!
