Editor’s Note: This story is part of our series “Helping Hands”, which aims to spotlight Johnson Countians doing good in the background of their community. If you have an idea for someone to spotlight in a future “Helping Hands” story, email us at stories@johnsoncountypost.com.
For Karen Boyd, “decking the halls” takes on a very specific meaning each holiday season.
Through November and into early December, she and her fellow volunteers spent hours unpacking, alphabetizing and organizing toys and other goods inside a cavernous former furniture store in Shawnee.
That’s all part of bringing to life the Johnson County Christmas Bureau’s mission to make sure families in need don’t go without presents during the holiday season.
This holiday season marked Boyd’s 37th year volunteering for the Christmas Bureau’s holiday shop.
The bureau provides gifts for low-income families
Each holiday season, the nonprofit serves clients whose annual income is less than 150% of the federal poverty level in Johnson County.
This year, the bureau’s appointment-only Christmas shop operated inside the former American Freight furniture store space at 6495 Quivira Rd., in Shawnee. The pop-up holiday shop is typically open to clients for about nine days at the beginning of December.
The shelves at the bureau are stocked with a variety of donated goods, from toys and clothing to diapers and books.
In 2024, the bureau served 13,175 people in Johnson County.
Over the past several years, Boyd said the demand for the Christmas Bureau’s services has continued to rise as more families find themselves in need.
“It just keeps going up and up,” she said, referring to the number of families served by the Christmas Bureau each year.
Boyd helps with the Christmas Bureau’s toy department
Boyd first became interested in the Christmas Bureau’s mission while serving as the leader of a local Girl Scout troop that helped out at the bureau as part of a service project.
During that first experience, she and the girls in the troop helped sack potatoes.
The following year, Boyd was drawn back to the Christmas Bureau on her own and found herself in the toy department. From there, as she tells it, the rest was history. She’s worked in the bureau’s toy department ever since.
As part of the toy team, Boyd helps give out toys for a wide range of ages — anywhere between newborns to 10-year-olds. Each year, Boyd said, the department gifts toys to roughly 4,000 children in Johnson County.
During her time as a volunteer, Boyd has turned helping the bureau into a family affair. At various points, her husband and children have joined her as volunteers, as well as several of her friends.
Organizing and preparing the bureau’s collection of toys is no small task, Boyd said. But the work pays off when parents find the toy they know their child wants to see under the tree.
“It just makes you feel so good,” Boyd said. “Every year it gets better. Every year we learn something new.”
Boyd was recognized for her volunteer efforts
At the Christmas Bureau’s 65th Anniversary Gala this year, Boyd received a “Volunteer of the Year” recognition for her long-standing efforts to help families in need.
“I just felt (like I was) glowing,” Boyd said, recalling her reception of the award. “It just feels so good to be recognized by your peers.”
As a Christmas Bureau volunteer, Boyd said, one of the biggest takeaways for her has been just how many families struggle to make ends meet in her own backyard.
While many people might not expect much poverty in Johnson County, she said, her time at the bureau has taught her that families in need are often right around the corner.
“I have come across so many people we have helped (out in Johnson County),” she said, recalling a time that a cashier at Walmart identified herself as a former Christmas Bureau client to Boyd while she was checking out with carts full of toys.
“It could be your neighbor,” she said.
That’s one of the most valuable parts of what she does at the Christmas Bureau, getting to hear people’s stories and knowing she can do something to help them.
“It just makes you feel so good about what you do,” she said. “It makes it worth coming back every year.”
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