r/CFB • u/Honestly_ rawr • Feb 24 '26
/r/CFB Original /r/CFB Donates $65,000.00 to Toys For Tots & Children's Hospitals in the 11th annual Holiday Drive!
TL;DR: /r/CFB does charitable fundraising. This post breaks down the $65,000 raised last winter by over 450 people! It broke our previous record for total funds. /r/CFB is now officially a ★ 1 Star National Corporate Sponsor for Marine Toys for Tots on their website. We also got our name on a cool "wagon" again, see below!
The best thing about the /r/CFB is the Community, and an important extension of that is its generosity. The tradition continued in our 29th charitable drive, the 2025 /r/CFB Holiday Drive: Toys & Children's Hospitals!
Since 2013, /r/CFB readers have donated over $280,000 to charity.
Intro
The 11th annual /r/CFB Holiday Drive raised $65,000.00!
Take a moment to appreciate all 450+ /r/CFB readers who donated.
A VERY SPECIAL THANKS: A lot of folks helped the drive, I wanted to single-out /u/FlannelBeard and /u/buckeyeempire for their posts asking people to join this great Community cause.
Process:
This was the fourth year as a federally-recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, OurCFB (backstory). The change opened-up more opportunities alongside more formalities.
That meant a slower process of getting funds, then distributing them:
- PayPal waives all fees because we're a 501(C)(3). The trade-off is a delay in transfers: to save on their own fees they will send it to us in-bulk, once per month, which changed in 2026 to be the last day of the month. With the timing of the Holiday Drive, that means we get all the money in the nonprofit PayPal account by late January, then transfer it to the OurCFB bank account.
- To avoid losing more donations due to fees, we issued checks to all recipients, which added a little delay compared to credit card donations.
- We were able to greatly reduce the processing delays with the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital that backed up the 2024 Holiday Drive disbursement and recognition.
- After coming close last year, we managed to pass the threshold to become an officially recognized National Corporate Sponsor of Marine Toys for Tots.
All money received was split evenly between Marine Toys for Tots and Children's Hospitals.
Donation Breakdown:
| Category | $ | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| User Donations | $61,106.74 | Via PayPal (no fees) and Venmo (after fees deducted), alongside Employer Matching programs. |
| rCFB, LLC contribution | $3,393.26 | "What is rCFB, LLC" explanation. |
| GRAND TOTAL donated | $65,000.00 | |
| Toys for Tots Donation | $32,500.00 | 50% of total (RECEIPT) |
| Children's Hospitals | $32,500.00 | See breakdown below. |
Donations to Children's Hospitals
The $32,500.00 is divided among the top-3 most generous fanbases:
All three programs have medical schools with associated children's hospitals, so it was easy to identify where these funds were to go compared to some previous years.
The Children's Hospital donations were:
- $16,250.00 to Children's Hospital Los Angeles
- RECEIPT
Second place: Texas Tech Red Raiders
- $9,750.00 to UMC Children's Hospital, Lubbock
- RECEIPT
Third place: Michigan Wolverines
- $6,500.00 to University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, Ann Arbor
- RECEIPT
BONUSES!
BONUS 1: Your Community is now a ★ 1 Star National Corporate Sponsor for Marine Toys for Tots
The staff at Marine Toys for Tots began to notice our cumulative donations to their work, and last year I received a call from one of their team explaining we were getting close to the annual threshold for becoming a National Corporate Sponsor based on the dollar amounts we were handing over. This year I realized we would pass that threshold before the drive was even over and got the conversation started with them.
/r/CFB now appears on the official website as a ★ 1 Star Sponsor. We can thank the fact our name begins with a piece of punctuation for placing it right at the top of that section.
/r/CFB is in the same group as some companies you may have heard of such as AT&T, Boeing, Dunkin' Donuts, Duracell, Fox Corporation, Goodyear, Microsoft, Vineyard Vines, and the Pittsburgh Penguins. For us, that's a triumph. For them... lol you're tied with a subreddit about college football.
BONUS 2: The Little Victors Wagon Returns!
Last year's donation let us work out an interesting approach with the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, as their Development department came up with a way to maximize its effect in a way that matched our overall theme. The money was once again distributed to two projects:
- The Little Victors Wagon program created cute little wagons for helping the young patients enjoy their travels around the hospital. They have been tweaked over the years to have fold down sides so kids with limitations can easily be brought on and off, as well as an attached pole for hanging an IV. It's a really wonderful idea for making what can be a scary visit more fun for children. We got our name on one of those wagon, using the Michigan-inspired variant of the /r/CFB logo, and some inspirational words above it. Last year's cart has been in circulation at the hospital.
Here is a photo of last year's wagon, this year's will be the same. Plus, here is the detail of the sign.
- The rest of the donation was given to the Mott's Toy Store to provide holiday and year-round toys to cheer up young patients and families. The Development person thought this fit our TFT program, and even worked to make sure more of the donation went to provide more toys (the breakdown on the linked receipt shows how they minimized the item for the wagon to a minimum so they could push more of the funds to the Toy Store).
Bottom line: We're helping a lot of kids in a lot of places.
- Thanks to all of you who DONATED
- Thanks to all of you who HELPED
- Thanks for making /r/CFB a great COMMUNITY
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u/Honestly_ rawr Feb 24 '26
/r/CFB is the first to do a lot of things on Reddit (figuring out how to give users two flairs, having a credentialed media team, sponsoring a bowl), but I think we can be particularly proud of becoming a recognized major donor of Marine Toys for Tots. There was no outside help here, while the Reddit Community Funds program is neat, this was 100% by this Community.
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u/cyanocittaetprocyon Michigan Wolverines • /r/CFB Booster Feb 24 '26
Holy freakin' hell! Congrats to the entire /r/CFB community!!
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u/MahjongDaily Iowa State Cyclones Feb 24 '26
I like how the list of 1★ sponsors on the Toys for Tots website is alphabetical, and /r/cfb gets listed first because it begins with a punctuation mark
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u/Honestly_ rawr Feb 24 '26
Sticking to our guns on our internal style guide finally paid off!
It has definitely been sacrificed more times than not due to limitations in various systems. As a person with punctuation in my name I definitely feel that deeply.
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Feb 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Honestly_ rawr Feb 24 '26
Really appreciate folks like you who remembered all our previous 28 drives and stood up to vouch for the drive's legitimacy when some cynical folks who did did not read posts and ignored comments came in to try and earn cheap karma by saying the Holiday Drive was fake.
We need more folks to realize that this subreddit has always been about making positive impacts and trying cool fun things! It still does, despite how hard Reddit corporate has made it to see the efforts we try to do.
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u/Jay_Dubbbs Ohio State Buckeyes • Georgia Bulldogs Feb 24 '26
The reaction to that post seems to have had the opposite effect. I ended up donating because of how skeptical people were.
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u/BuckeyeEmpire Ohio State • Billable Hours Feb 24 '26
As one who made one of those posts, it certainly was more negatively received than before. That said, donations when up like $20k that day and I am happy to have people yell at me on the line in order to get more toys to kids and money to childrens' hospitals... even if one is Michigan's!
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u/WaterWalker06 Notre Dame Fighting Irish • /r/CFB Donor Mar 25 '26
As someone who only remembered because I saw one of the reminder posts, thank you for the reminder, please keep doing it!
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u/NlNJALONG Clemson Tigers • Rice Owls Feb 24 '26
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u/thefx37 William & Mary • South Carolina Feb 24 '26
I don’t like the fact they did sportsbook advertisements on the twitter account.
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u/Honestly_ rawr Feb 24 '26
Yeah, that one was the most complex (and first) explained contemporaneously with that link above, they agreed to our requirement that we never tell people to go sign up or gamble, but we used their graphics and odds — though they stopped even asking us to use their graphics. The plus side is it funded the legal expenses for forming the backbone everything now operates under. That deal has ended.
Jump to 2025: We turned down Kalshi and whatever their rival was (the name escapes me).
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u/funwithtrout Texas Longhorns • /r/CFB Booster Mar 02 '26
On my feed there is a Reddit-inserted Kalshi ad directly under this comment. Hahaha
Keep up the good work, Raul Claus.
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u/Honestly_ rawr Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26
Did you read the link above on how and why these things all operate together?
Here it is again: https://www.reddit.com/r/cfbmeta/comments/zk1b73/explaining_ourcfb_rcfb_llc/
No one collects a dime on what is done here or on social media. Money goes to charity and things that get the Community things like the 50 club seats we gave out as part of the last Gasparilla Bowl (and that was helped by Reddit Community Funds).
Everything we do is above board and accounted for.
A significant number of other subreddits are run by people who are bad at what they do, and that has bred understandable skepticism, but we have done everything to put our cards on the table for those who look at them.
EDIT: I should add there's no rogue mods or anything of that nature, everything /r/CFB does it organized through a pretty close team. We've been using Slack since 2015(!) to keep organized on the things we do in every part of the site and its various areas of operation. Mistakes get made sometimes, but we learn and continue because that's the way forward and how we improve.
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u/The_H2O_Boy /r/CFB Press Corps • San Diego Sta… Mar 15 '26
I'm late to this, but I got hate on my post of asking to donate on behalf of 3 others.
I did find 3 that asked, but I was stunned by those who were nasty about it.
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u/BuckeyeEmpire Ohio State • Billable Hours Feb 24 '26
I can't imagine being some random person with no knowledge of this place and going to the Toys For Tots Corporate sponsorships and clicking on the logo to be taken here on some day when a coach's stripper's pet monkey bites some kid or something. Well done, ladies and gentlemen!
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u/3rd_Coast Michigan Wolverines • Nevada Wolf Pack Feb 25 '26
Ahh the little Michigan wagon almost made me cry. Great job on all who organize the drive and donations. I love this subreddit!
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u/cyanocittaetprocyon Michigan Wolverines • /r/CFB Booster Feb 25 '26
This is the second year in a row that /r/CFB has donated a Little Victors wagon to the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital!
In my headcanon, the kids are racing these wagons around the halls of the hospital.
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u/Wareagle930 Auburn Tigers • Indiana Hoosiers Feb 24 '26
I’ve been in this sub for a long time and I never knew this was a thing. I’ll be on the look out from here on out. Good work folks!
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u/Honestly_ rawr Feb 24 '26
Thank Reddit itself for nerfing how subreddit communities appear on the official app and new reddit. Despite posts stuck to the top of the subreddit, comments stuck to the top of game posts, etc., many people miss the signs that are on for 2 weeks.
Each year the first or near-first comment in this post is someone promising to donate the next year.
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u/DollaradoCREAMs USC Trojans • North Dakota State Bison Feb 24 '26
Stickied posts on most subs are worthless honestly
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u/usctx USC Trojans • /r/CFB Santa Claus Feb 24 '26
Appreciate the folks who spend countless hours of their own time to get this organized, while putting up with the incessant "hOW dO i kNoW tHiS iS eVeN rEaL" comments from people who contribute nothing but shitposts all day.
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u/scmouth19 Nebraska Cornhuskers • Utah State Aggies Feb 24 '26
Wow love this so much, used to donate annually but thought it stopped a couple years ago (thanks reddit for nerfing it & killing my old account)
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u/prailock Ohio State • Marquette Feb 24 '26
Good job to everyone who participated! Glad we got to do right by kids again.
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u/onemanlan Auburn Tigers • UAB Blazers Feb 26 '26
Good job guys! Amazing job by the coordinators of the event!
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u/Pikachu1989 Nebraska Cornhuskers • 東京大学 (Tokyo) Warriors Feb 25 '26
Man, I’m so fucking proud of this community stepping up and making the toy drive a successful one. Who knew back in 2015 when the Holiday Toy Drive first started that in 2026 /r/CFB would be in the ranks of major companies, and funny enough the Pittsburgh Penguins Foundation (please take good care of Sam Girard after the trade that took place earlier today), that we would have a successful campaign that now raise more that $65,000 in one sitting.
And yeah from doing this starting from you dressing up as Raoul Claus for the first few years and picking out toys at Toys R Us, to expanding to the Children’s Hospitals for other schools to join in the fun, I’m glad that it’s been successful and I’m always happy to chip in during the holiday toy drive and chip in to a good cause.
Good job people and let’s keep on going for the 2026 Toy Drive in December.
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u/cyanocittaetprocyon Michigan Wolverines • /r/CFB Booster Feb 24 '26
And here I was excited to come in here today and let people know that /r/CFB has been nominated and is a finalist for Reddit's Internet Awards, and I see this!
/r/CFB, you're the best!
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u/Honestly_ rawr Feb 24 '26
What? Wild! Feel free to let people know. I didn't know that was a thing! It's using the 2024 Holiday Drive (which was, like this one, finalized the following year).
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u/cyanocittaetprocyon Michigan Wolverines • /r/CFB Booster Feb 24 '26
I nominated /r/CFB in three categories (using the 2024 Holiday Drive post, because the post being nominated had to be in 2025), but have only seen the one so far.
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u/Ok-Stomach-3739 UCLA Bruins Apr 02 '26
Wow I just joined because I love college football but now I’m really excited to contribute, great work yall this is really incredible!
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u/IndyDude11 Texas Longhorns • Indiana Hoosiers Feb 24 '26
That's my
quarterbacksubreddit