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A compassionate Marine is still running a Long Island holiday toy drive for needy kids after three decades — even as he contends with the after-effects of a debilitating stroke.
Chuck Kilbride, a retired USMC Major and Long Island native who has led Nassau County’s Toys For Tots since the 1990s, showed up to help hand out toys to children from Hempstead at Miller’s Ale House in Levittown despite his health issues on Wednesday.
Kilbride, 73, suffered a stroke last October that left him struggling with aphasia — a debilitating brain disorder that impairs the ability to speak, understand, read and write — but the vet hasn’t let it slow him down.
“Altogether, it’s probably been over 2 million [toys],” Kilbride said of the number of trinkets he’s given out to children in his more than 30-year career.
He was honored on Wednesday during the drive by county government officials who said his decades of commitment and refusal to step back makes him a role model.
“He [just] wants to make sure all these kids are happy for the holiday season,” Toys For Tots co-chairmen Sean Acosta, who helped lead the honors for Kilbride, told The Post.
“He wants to make sure he puts a smile on every one of these kids’ faces — he collects the toys — [but] he never takes recognition, and that’s why this year we’re recognizing him,” Acosta said.
Kilbride first enlisted in 1971 and served 27 years in the Marines. He took on the responsibility of running the massive toy drive almost immediately after retiring, eventually earning a spot in the New York State Veterans Hall of Fame.
He has since spent the next three decades rallying donors, volunteers and local officials behind the cause.
After his stroke last year, some thought he would begin to take a step back from his duties — but instead, he kept pushing forward for the children that serve as his inspiration.
“He is relentless, determined. He doesn’t quit,” his daughter, retired Army Captain Kate Hiebert, 52, told The Post.
“Toys for Tots became a mechanism for him to coordinate the generosity of everyone else to give to the next generation of kids, and I think also to teach them that there are people who care, and that this is the way you can give,” she said.
But the humble vet was quick to pass the credit to the officials and workers he’s teamed up with for years as they sung his praises and passed the credit right back to him.
“That’s the Marines,” Acosta said. “He keeps going no matter what.”