Operation Elf 2026 Toy Run
Saturday, November 7, 2026 · 9 AM · Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 1279 High St · Auburn, California
About this event
A toy run normally ends with the toys going into a bin. Operation Elf ends with more than five hundred children each choosing four of them themselves, on top of a jacket, pyjamas, a blanket and a stuffed animal.
The programme is run by Higher Purpose - The Event Foundation, a Sacramento-area charity working with underprivileged young people and veterans, which says it has been at this for over a decade. It publishes no founder, no founding year and no edition number for the run. The church on High Street in Auburn is the starting point, not the organiser.
The day opens with pancakes and eggs from mid-morning, twenty dollars a head, before kickstands up and the group ride out.
Auburn is worth the trip regardless of the cause. The town sits at about twelve hundred feet where the Sierra foothills begin, and Highway 49 and the Foresthill road run straight out of it into the American River canyon.
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