Elizabeth Scott has led Montgomery County’s Toys for Tots — part of the Marine Corps Reserve’s gift-giving program for low-income households — for six decades. As the Trump administration began slashing federal jobs earlier this year, she had one question.

“What in the world are we going to do?”

Montgomery County is the state’s wealthiest, but tens of thousands of families here have trouble affording holiday gifts for their children. Those numbers are only going to rise, Scott reasoned, given the high number of federal employees who live in the county, which is home to the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies and offices. Scott is worried that donations could dip.

More than half of Montgomery County residents know someone who has been affected by federal cutbacks, according to a Banner poll.

Other gift-giving programs, public and private, are also bracing for a tougher holiday season.

Peter Sinclair, a spokesperson for the county’s Department of Health and Human Services, said the agency’s holiday giving project is usually strained and unable to serve about 5% to 10% of families requesting assistance. He said federal layoffs will exacerbate the shortfall, although it’s too early to tell by how much.

Each December, Gaithersburg hosts a holiday celebration for low-income families with arts and crafts, carolers and a visit from Santa. Staffers say they expect a greater number of families in need this year due to federal layoffs.

Renee Nicolosi, the city’s manager of community services, said events like these boost the self-esteem of children who would otherwise go without gifts.

It makes “children feel that there’s support for them and people care for them,” she said.

An annual scramble

As a Toys for Tots coordinator, Scott, 78, is in charge of finding volunteers and a warehouse — a space large enough to collect and distribute gifts to tens of thousands of children. Last year the program served 43,000.

But in the last 15 years, it has been increasingly difficult to find someone willing to lend a warehouse from early October to late December, she said.

If she doesn’t find a warehouse soon, she warned, she won’t be able to distribute toys in Montgomery County.

“Somebody with a heart,” she said, needs to share their warehouse soon.

The warehouse donated last year, which saved the toy drive at the last minute, is already rented.

Close to home

Federal layoffs have hit Scott’s own family. Her daughter, who is 61 and has worked in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for 15 years, was laid off earlier this year. Scott’s daughter and grandchildren will help to distribute gifts this year as they always have, she added.

Scott, who is from Gaithersburg, first learned about Toys for Tots in 1968. She had recently become a single mother to her three children, and remembers waiting in line outside of the organization’s warehouse between 4 and 5 a.m. for gifts.

The polite Marines working the event inspired her to help. For decades, her children have, too. Most of her dozen-plus volunteers are her family members.

“I explained to them that Toys for Tots was there when they were small, and they helped us,” Scott said. “So this is a way of paying back.”

Without a warehouse, all she can do is wait.

“I’ve been praying that people are able to come through this year,” she said.