It’s the thanks from the kids that keeps Capt. Erron Flowers of the Vicksburg Fire Department organizing the department’s Christmas toy drive each year.

Flowers began the drive 13 years ago at the request of former Chief Doris Sprouse and has kept it going to provide wrapped gifts to about 20 to 35 children each year, he said.

&#8220It’s just to make sure that they have a toy and to make sure they have something to smile about,” Flowers said.

Beginning after Thanksgiving each year Flowers collects the names of children &#8220ages 0 to 12” whose parents request presents from the drive. Firefighters provide the gifts.

&#8220Either they contribute toys or they contribute money,” Flowers said of his colleagues.

Names are accepted through the first week in December, Flowers said. Between then and the week before Christmas, Flowers does most of the gift-wrapping and delivering of the toys, he said.

Flowers said he picks out the presents for the children based on their ages and usually does not have requests for specific items. The presents he buys range from bicycles to miniature action figures of movie characters, he said.

&#8220You wouldn’t believe how much wrapping I do,” Flowers said.

The presents Flowers buys for children are delivered countywide, Flowers said.

&#8220Sometimes I get help if I need it,” he said.

Flowers said he has two sons of his own, the younger a freshman at Mississippi State University and the older a 25-year-old military veteran now attending college in San Diego.

Sprouse started the program in 1992.

During the time Flowers has been organizing the drive, he’s received thank-you postcards and photographs from the children or their parents. Some of the same families have received presents several years in a row and, in those cases, Flowers has been able to watch the children grow up.

&#8220That’s the main thing that keeps me going,” he said.