Olympia Toy Run 2026

About this event

Twenty-five motorcycles turned out for the first one in 1977. Recent editions have drawn twelve to fifteen thousand, and the state closes the road along Capitol Lake for the afternoon to let them through. The man who started it was Joe Sullivan, known locally as Santa Joe, who was still leading the column past the age of seventy and whose stated reason was simply that he and the other original organisers wanted to help out the community. Everything collected goes to the Salvation Army's Toy 'n' Joy Shop in Olympia, where a parent chooses the gifts themselves and collects food aid in the same visit; one Salvation Army soldier, Debbie Ingram, has run the toy sorting for twenty-eight years. Entry is an unwrapped toy or a small cash donation, and riders muster in a shopping centre car park in Lacey before rolling through town to Marathon Park. It is a short, slow run on flat city streets, which makes it one of the easier large rides in the state for a novice or a trike. The picture is the obvious one and no worse for it: several thousand machines with dolls and teddy bears strapped to the sissy bars.