Points of Light is a global organization whose mission is to inspire, equip and mobilize people to take action that changes the world. Each weekday they highlight someone who is doing just that. Someone like Toy Ann McCray.
Toy Ann was raised in a household where giving is a way of life. One might even say she began volunteering while still in the womb.
“Whether I was volunteering at church, a food pantry or a nursing home, I always took Toy with me — even while I was pregnant with her,” Toy’s mother, Gwendolyn, said.
Toy Ann continues her family’s legacy of giving by volunteering with numerous nonprofits in the Chicago area, despite her demanding job as a training manager at the Chicago Area Consolidation Hub (CACH). Through these charities, she works with the elderly, the homeless and single mothers.
But Toy Ann, the winner of the 2020 UPS Jim Casey Community Service Award, has a special place in her heart for young people in difficult situations. She and her husband operate their own organization, POET, to mentor and encourage at-risk youth through performance art.
Points of Light is the world’s largest organization dedicated to volunteer service. You can read about their recognition of Toy Ann’s work on the Points of Light website.
“Whether I was volunteering at church, a food pantry or a nursing home, I always took Toy with me — even while I was pregnant with her,” Toy Ann McCray’s mother, Gwendolyn, said.