Premier advocacy body for Victorian motorcyclists of all kinds

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Welcome to the home of the Toy Run

This website is a free service to all motorcycle clubs and organisations for listing their Toy Run event. It is hosted by the Victorian Motorcycle Council, our motto is "United we Ride" which best describes why we do this. This site is for you, the rider. Please take the time to find your local or major Toy Run in Toyruns around Australia. The VMC encourages riders to participate in as many Toy Runs as possible so that children everywhere may have a special Christmas every year.

The VMC is looking to continue the legacy of the Motorcycle Riders Association Melbourne Toy Run as the major Toy Run event in Victoria. Alas it's been a struggle to organise since the Covid Lockdowns as people have moved on. We do not have an event for 2022 but please consider your donations and gifts for the Salvation Army Christmas Appeal. And thank you from all of us.

Check out our Facebook page for fun, photos and information.

This spectacular event is Melbourne’s original and premier Toy Run.

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Continuing the legacy of the Melbourne Toy Run from its humble inception in 1978 supported by the Victorian Motorcycle Council

Motorcycle Riders dress up their bikes, trikes and scooters with Christmas decorations and ride from all over Victoria to bring gifts, toys and food for the children and families of Victoria in need. The Salvation Army trucks will again be waiting to receive these gifts from the bikers and public.

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The first toy run was held by the San Fernando Valley Charter of the Hells Angels in America 1973. That first run, 200 bikes escorted two truck loads of toys from Griffith Park to Los Angeles city hall. A week after the first toy run in El Lay, a couple of clubs in Bergen, New Jersey named the Skyway Riders and the Travelers held their own toy run.  “A number of residents here were terrified” the New York Times reported, “But the worst never came.  There were no gang fights…or the assorted other crimes depicted on television.”

Suddenly, people liked us.  They really, really liked us.  And, if you listened hard enough you could hear bikers all over America thinking, “What a great idea!”

Toy runs popped up like mushrooms.  The next year, 1974, there wasn’t a biker’s rights organization or an outlaw club in America that didn’t sponsor a toy run.  By the time Harley-Davidson invented its own club, the Harley Owners Group (HOG), in 1983 the toy run had become an institution.

In 1975 Bikes Unlimited Inc. began the first Toy Run in Australia in Perth which is still running today.
 
In 1978 the newly formed MRA in Victoria began their Toy Run with a small band of riders that met in Albert Park to pass on toys to the Salvation Army in Melbourne, more than 500,000 motorcyclists have taken part, as the Toy Run phenomenon spread to communities across Australia.
 

There are toy runs happening all around Australia, use the pull down menus on the right for the one closest to you! They are welcome to all riders, their familes and friends. The Victorian Motorcycle Council hopes all riders will attend and support as many toy runs as possible and remember that this is all about the kids and those in need. Have fun!

Website enquiries contact: editor@toyrun.org.au

Copyright © 2020 Toyrun.org.au and Victorian Motorcycle Council