
Donald and Janice Bancroft at their home in Raymond on Friday. The couple are longtime Press Herald Toy Fund volunteers. When Donald Bancroft was growing up on Portland’s Munjoy Hill, his mother relied on what was then called the Bruce Roberts Toy Fund for holiday gifts for her 13 children and two grandchildren she raised from infancy. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald
SOUTH PORTLAND — Donald Bancroft never stops moving when he’s in the Press Herald Toy Fund workshop.
While his wife, Janice, helps process applications, he buzzes around the room, packing toys and books into bags that will be distributed to thousands of children this month.
The Raymond couple are among the many longtime volunteers who show up each holiday season like clockwork, ready to do whatever it takes to get toys out the door and into the hands of local kids.
But their connections to the Toy Fund are especially deep and go back decades to when they were both growing up in Portland and the 75-year-old charity was just getting started.
Her family had connections to the charity’s founder and were early supporters of the effort.
His family, on the other hand, didn’t have money to donate. He would learn later in life that the Christmas gifts he and all his siblings received came from the Toy Fund.
The charity – known for many years as the Bruce Roberts Toy Fund – began in 1949 when Matthew Barron, Portland’s assistant welfare director, saw how families were struggling. The economy was difficult, and he worried that many children would not get Christmas gifts.
Barron reached out to his friend Robert Bruce Beith, who was an editor for the Portland Evening Express and wrote a local news column. Beith, writing under the pseudonym Bruce Roberts, asked readers for donations, hoping their generosity would reach their $1,000 fundraising goal.
The response was overwhelming: Readers donated $3,903.55, plus $500 worth of new toys. That first year, the Toy Fund distributed 500 dolls, 60 sleds, 100 footballs, 1,500 books and 2,500 mechanical toys. Toys were given to 1,500 children that year and even more in the years to follow. The tradition was carried on by readers of the Portland Press Herald and continues today.
In the early years, Don Bancroft and his siblings were among the young children who unwrapped Christmas gifts from the toy fund.
Don and Janice Bancroft both grew up around Munjoy Hill – he was on the hill, she lived at the bottom – and went to Portland High School, where he played basketball. He came from a big family, with 13 children plus two grandchildren his mother took in as babies and raised alongside her own children.
His mother stayed home with the kids while his father worked on a boat owned by Donnie MacVane, a well-known lobsterman based in South Portland and Long Island. There was never extra money to go around.
Don Bancroft, now 72, remembers that his mother would take seven or eight of the kids down to a big warehouse by the waterfront to buy shoes.

Donald Bancroft holds a photo of his mom, right, and sister at his home in Raymond on Friday. When Donald Bancroft was growing up on Munjoy Hill, his mother relied on the Bruce Roberts Toy Fund for holiday gifts for her 15 children. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald
“There were mounds, like a big pyramid, of shoes in there. My mom could give the guy 50 cents, and we’d go in there and dig around for matching ones,” he said. “We didn’t have any money.”

Don Bancroft at work in the Bruce Roberts Toy Fund workshop in South Portland. Gillian Graham/Portland Press Herald
But at Christmas, there would somehow be toys for each child. He didn’t know until many years later that most of those gifts came from the Toy Fund.
“Without that, we wouldn’t have had anything for Christmas,” he said.
Janice Bancroft’s early exposure to the Toy Fund was much different.
“I was fortunate when I was growing up that my parents were able to provide a Christmas, but I know a lot of kids were not so fortunate,” she said. “No child deserves to get up in the morning and have an empty tree and wonder why Santa Claus skipped them.”
Janice Bancroft, now 69, said her mother worked with Beith’s wife, who talked about the fund they were starting to raise money to make sure kids had gifts to open.

Janice Bancroft at the Bruce Roberts Toy Fund workshop in South Portland. Gillian Graham/Portland Press Herald
“My mother, after she heard that story from Mrs. Beith, always made it a point to donate every year,” she said. “It was something I used to follow in the newspaper and read the different stories about. It always stuck in my mind.”
Janice Bancroft, a retired psychiatric nurse, started volunteering with the Toy Fund about 30 years ago.
She said her husband always encouraged her to volunteer, an annual tradition she came to love because of its impact on the community and the relationships she built with other volunteers. Don Bancroft, who worked as a supervisor at the correctional facility in Windham, joined when he could.
When their son Chad was a teenager, he asked to volunteer and was finally allowed to when he turned 18. Like his mother, he became a regular.
Mary Cavallaro, a longtime volunteer who has known Don Bancroft since high school, said the family has always given their time generously. Chad, whose work schedule now limits how often he can make it to the workshop, became Cavallaro’s favorite volunteer.
“They are all wonderful,” she said.
Now retired, Don Bancroft shows up at the Toy Fund workshop regularly to volunteer. On a recent afternoon, he helped load vehicles with hundreds of gifts bound for a social service agency that will distribute them to families who applied for assistance. He’s noticed the increase in requests for gifts and is glad he can help fulfill them.
This year, the Toy Fund has seen a surge in applications and is on pace to provide gifts to 4,000 children across York, Cumberland, Sagadahoc, Lincoln, Knox and Androscoggin counties. Many families who applied have said they are overwhelmed by the cost of living as prices for rent and groceries reach historic highs.
The Bancrofts say they plan to keep volunteering for the Toy Fund as long as they can and hope others continue to support the cause.
“Last year, I was unable to volunteer because of sickness and I felt lost,” Janice Bancroft said. “It wasn’t Christmas without the Toy Fund.”
HOW TO HELP
To make a donation online, go to pressherald.com/toy-fund.
Checks made out to the Portland Press Herald Toy Fund may be mailed to 295 Gannett Drive, South Portland ME 04106.
Names of donors are published in the Press Herald unless a donor wishes to remain anonymous.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
We invite you to add your comments. We encourage a thoughtful exchange of ideas and information on this website. By joining the conversation, you are agreeing to our commenting policy and terms of use. More information is found on our FAQs. You can modify your screen name here.
Comments are managed by our staff during regular business hours Monday through Friday as well as limited hours on Saturday and Sunday. Comments held for moderation outside of those hours may take longer to approve.
Join the Conversation
Please sign into your Press Herald account to participate in conversations below. If you do not have an account, you can register or subscribe. Questions? Please see our FAQs.