Photography by Megan Mumford
This story is part of our annual Capital Region Gives Back initiative that honors 10 locals who are making our community a better place. Read up on all of the 2025 honorees and join us on December 2 for the 7th annual Capital Region Gives Back event at Putnam Place.
Toys for Toga, a local take on the national Toys for Tots, began as way for Saratoga Brewing Company manager Max Oswald to get his brewery more involved in the community. Little did he know, the grassroots initiative would grow into a county-wide effort that long outlived the brewery itself.
“When we started, it was literally just me and our taproom manager, Meg, going around and dropping boxes off and picking them up in our creepy, little, white van,” Oswald remembers. “But the support was crazy. We had low expectations, and just overshot them by a ridiculous amount.”
Another thing Oswald didn’t anticipate: How much the community actually needed Toys for Toga.
“At the very beginning, I was oblivious,” he says. “I felt like Saratoga County was this wealthy community. My eyes were opened to how much need there is out there.”
Over the years, the program—which collects toys and donates them to Saratoga County children by way of Franklin Community Center, the Mechanicville Area Community Services Center, and CAPTAIN Community Human Services—grew, and when Saratoga Brewing closed in 2018, DeCrescente Distributing stepped up to take it over. Oswald came back into the fold after launching Brewnited, a private foundation that supported out-of-work service industry personnel during the pandemic. Now, he serves more in a volunteer capacity, helping organize community outreach efforts—including an initiative that invites people to donate a toy in exchange for a free tattoo at Saratoga Tattoo Company—and actually going out and buying gifts, specifically for older kids.
“Because we got some funding from Death Wish Coffee, we were able to target those older kids and ask the nonprofits what this population of kids really wants,” Oswald says. “I love when I get a shopping list that I know is focused on a specific kid and I can buy exactly what they’re asking for.” The gifts run the gamut—everything from a scooter to a hair diffuser. (Oswald had to learn what the latter was before he purchased it.)
“One kid wanted a bed,” Oswald says. “I got that kid a great bed.”
