The founder of Tiny Tim’s Toy Shop dies, remembered for helping thousands of kids

SALT LAKE CITY – The man behind Tiny Tim’s Toy Shop in West Jordan who has built hundreds of thousands of toy cars for children across the world has passed away. Alton Thacker, 89, is being remembered as an incredible, kind, and generous husband, father, grandfather, and friend.

Inside the Tiny Tim’s warehouse, it looks like Santa’s Workshop. Dozens of volunteers can be seen turning ordinary pieces of wood into little wooden toy cars.

Alton Thacker, the founder of Tiny Tim’s Foundation for Kids, died at age 89 on Nov. 26, 2024. (Courtesy, Thacker family)

Each one hand hand-painted with special unique designs and colors. The cars are then sent to kids across the world through a variety of humanitarian groups. In 1996, Thacker started the project in his garage after visiting third-world countries and seeing the joy in kid’s eyes when getting a toy.

Related: One Utah woman’s creative solution to distracted driving

“That’s how it kind of started, my grandpa was Santa Clause. He grew the beard and wore the red shirts, and we were Santa Clause in Mexico for 15 years,” his granddaughter Emilee Johnson told KSL TV. “It’s incredible what he did he started just a few toys here and there… Because he wanted to help, and then other people came, well we want to help, and we need toys, and it just grew.”

28 years later they now operate in a huge warehouse, where this year, they will make more than 115,000 toy cars. For the past 28 years, they’ve made 1.7 million cars which have been delivered to more than 113 countries. They also do clothing and blankets and hygiene kits. Johnson now runs the Tiny Tim’s Foundation for Kids.

“I’m going to miss him every day. Not every grandpa does this, where they have this incredible legacy. From the time I was in high school this is just what we did. It’s how we spent Christmas. It’s how we spent our time,” Johnson said.

Volunteers and longtime friends of Thacker, Lynn McClure and Wade Bender, both said they’ve lost a dear friend.

“Alton was a charismatic man and I’m a better man because I knew and loved Alton Thacker. He had a gift for people and children,” McClure said.

“Probably the greatest man I’ve ever met besides my father-in-law,” Bender said. “He was kind, but he was so service-oriented. If you let him, he would just give everything away.”

But volunteers said there is only one way to honor Alton Thacker, and that is to get to work and build thousands of more cars.

Read the full story from KSLTV.com here.