Herald Neighbors

Little St. Nick Foundation hosts annual golf tourney

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Ray Mohler Jr. — a.k.a. Little St. Nick — hosted the organization’s 10th annual golf outing on Sept. 26 at the Woodmere Country Club.

An East Rockaway resident, Mohler has been in the toy business, so to speak, since 2005, when, with the help of his parents, Dina and Ray Sr., created the Little Saint Nick Foundation, a nonprofit that provides sick children with toys, games and more.

When Ray was 4, he was diagnosed with a rare hip disease and was a patient at Schneider Children’s Hospital (now Cohen Children’s Medical Center). Even though he had to wear leg braces for two years, he thought he was blessed to be able to leave the hospital. At 5, he decided that he wanted to give something back to the friends he left behind at the hospital, who weren’t as fortunate as he was to be able to go home. So Ray decided to donate half of his unwrapped holiday toys to them that Christmas. Grateful that his disease was not life-threatening, he continued to return to the hospital with his own Christmas presents to cheer up the young patients. The following year, he went door to door to raise money to purchase toys for sick children. In 2005, his efforts grew so extensive that they became the Little Saint Nick Foundation, with the mission, as Ray describes it, of making hospitals a kids-friendly place.

The foundation, which operates through grants, donations and fundraisers, changes the way children think about hospital stays by allowing them to do what they love the most — watching TV and DVDs, listening to music, playing video games and, most important, he said, “playing with toys, toys, toys!”

Mohler and his foundation have donated more than a half-million toys, entertainment centers, electronics and other wish-list items to various hospitals. Periodically he drops off 1,000 gift bags for nurses to hand out in emergency rooms to comfort young patients.