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School is back!! It’s never too soon to start thinking about involving the students in a lesson on doing good and giving back. One way to get students to think about others and give of themselves is to hold a gently-used plastic toy collection just before the holidays. Parents are looking to clean out the old toys that their children have outgrown before they bring in the new ones!! What better way to help children in need during the holidays than to hold a collection of gently used plastic toys at your school. The best part is, no one has to go out and buy anything. And the students get to experience the joy of giving something up of their own and are made aware that that there are those less fortunate.
It is a win-win for the school, students, children in need, and the environment!!
Here are some of our favorite tips provided by the PTA members we've worked with in the past on how to start your collection:
- Get your PTA involved. They have the manpower to help out.
- Get a date on the school calendar approved by the principal.
- Once you have a date approved, sign up on the SCT website as a collector.
- You will be matched with an organization that needs your toys for deserving children.
- Our website has many resource materials found here to help you with #6-10.
- Have the PTA e-blast parents several times with collection info and to start saving toys.
- Place an article in the school newspaper.
- Place fliers with retailers around town.
- Have morning announcements running in school 3 days before the collection.
- Teachers can use our holiday activity booklet as a springboard for class conversations about doing good and the importance of giving.
- Put information on the sign outside your school.
- Ask for toys that are plastic ONLY, no small or missing parts and batteries working.
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Your collection can be as simple as the first hour or two of school.
- Collect on the front lawn as the children walk in.
- Take toys from cars dropping off children.
- Between 8-10 older students can be selected to help wipe down the toys.
- Students can also help tag the toys with messages and bag the toys.
- Assign parents to deliver the toys to the organization or arrange to have the organization pick them up.
- Let SCT know how many toys you collected and we will post your info with photos.
For Booz Allen Hamilton's second Earth Day plastic toy collection, the firm employed some new tactics that resulted in a very successful drive. The combination of a highly visible and attractive picket-fenced toy collection area in their headquarters lobby and getting everyone involved, including the on-site daycare center, pushed their gently used plastic toy total to nearly 1,000 this past April. They also included promotional materials on their elevator and lobby electronic displays which served as daily reminders to employees.
On Earth Day, the Sustainability Team and the firmwide Green Office Teams were joined by over 25 employee volunteers who pitched in to clean and prepare the toys for donation.
“It was so gratifying to work together to benefit those less fortunate and it was great to see all the plastic we were able to keep out of our landfills,” said Elizabeth Wayt, manager of Booz Allen’s Sustainability Program Management Office. Even the daycare center got the children involved in the donation and cleaning processes. “It was heartwarming to see the kids’ excitement as they helped with the toys. The life lessons of helping others in need and recycling can never be started too young,” added Kathleen Medici, Sustainability Specialist at Booz Allen Hamilton.
Booz Allen topped off the firm's successful collection with a generous grant to Second Chance Toys which will go towards outreach to help grow our impact. Thank you Booz Allen Hamilton!!
Twenty hardworking Viacom employees gathered at Fairlawn Recycling Center in New Jersey to clean and pack up an entire 1-800-GOT-JUNK? truck worth of perfectly usable and fun toys for children in need. This year's donation came in at 1,500 toys! The collection was done as a part of Viacommunity Day, a day of service for Viacom employees worldwide.
"It was three hours of fun, cleaning, and bonding for us. The best thing is that kids will get to play with these toys again," commented Patrick O'Sullivan, the Viacom Team Captian for the event. This year, toys collected were delivered to Greater Bergen Head Start, The Vince Lombardi Center for Hope in Newark, and the Apostolic Church in Newark. Excellent work, Viacom!
The 300 toys donated to the children at Vince Lombardi Centers of Hope this Earth Day marked the 10th straight year of toy donations to children in the City of Newark, NJ. In honor of that occasion, Mayor Ras J. Baraka presented us with a Certificate of Appreciation from the city. We'd like to pass that appreciation on to our wonderful collectors and partners who have made the past 10 years of donations possible. Thank you!
For their Earth Day collection this year, Booz Allen Hamilton found a way to collect over 800 toys for organizations in Northern Virginia and Baltimore/DC. We wanted to share some of their strategies, in case your organization might be able to follow their lead for future collections!
1. Set up a visible collection spot. Booz Allen Hamilton holds a winter new toy collection, and already had the fencing seen here. Employees were already familiar with the fencing and idea of a toy collection, so it was easy to make the transition to collecting used toys instead of brand-new.
2. Open up the collection to everyone. Getting the on-site childcare center involved in both collecting and preparing toys equated to more awareness and fun for everyone.
3. Use Earth Day as a day to gather everyone and work together. Earth Day fell on a Friday this year, so the employees at Booz Allen Hamilton's headquarters, the teachers and children from the on-site childcare center, and employees from nearby locations all participated in cleaning up the toys on that day. Using Earth Day as a culmination of the drive helps drive home the message of the collection-- to reuse and recycle!
We would like to congratulate Booz Allen Hamilton on a successful Earth Day collection. We'd also like to thank their local moving vendor Office Movers, who donated their time and equipment in delivering toys to three local organizations: Jill's House, Northern Virginia Family Services, and The National Center for Children and Families.
Most of us have had an interesting Spring so far! But it seems like the warmer Spring weather might be here to stay. I don't know about you, but as soon as the weather turns I start to get the itch to clean out the house and get rid of toys and other things we no longer use. That's why Earth Day (April 22) and the weeks around it are such a great time for toy collections. Many people are already clearing things out.
If you come across toys to donate, visit our Drop Off Locations page to see if there's a collection near you. Some collections start as early as this weekend!
It's Read Across America Day! We thought today would be a great day to share Second Chance Books with you. Though we're unaffiliated, we certainly share a lot more than our similar names. Second Chance Books works much like Second Chance Toys, only with donated used children's books. Consider checking them out and donating books your children no longer need!
Founded by Nancy Dean, a retired librarian, Second Chance Books is a children's book donation group. In other words, the non-profit collects gently-used books and recycles them to communities in need. Ultimately, Second Chance Books is an on-going collaboration between parents, students and teachers.
"Recycling is important to me for the sheer fact of cutting down on landfill waste," said Karrie Dean, the organization's co-founder and daughter of Nancy Dean. She added: "So many items, like books and toys, can be 'upcycled' to kids in need. It's a win-win." When recycling like that happens, books are kept out of landfills while also getting a "second chance" to reach new readers. As 47% of fourth graders from low-income families read below the basic level -- while 26% of materials entering landfills is paper-based -- book-recycling expands access to books and spreads the joy of reading to more young minds.
Second Chance Books encourages groups to have book drives, and is able to pick up books in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York; books can otherwise be shipped to their headquarters for distribution. For more information on Second Chance Books and how you may get involved, click on over to www.secondchancebooks.org.
We posted earlier about the successful toy drive that Chobani had at its Idaho facility, but they were also massively successful at the company's New York headquarters! The employees in New Berlin and Norwich, NY collected enough toys to completely fill up a truck, inside and out. The toys were delivered to the non-profit Roots & Wings, which provides household goods, food, and clothing to 225 families going through emergencies or hard times.
We love when different groups work together, especially when it's centered around a collection of toys for children in need! The Enivornmental Club of Pascack Valley High School got together with Daisy Girl Scout Group #96970 of New Milford, NJ for a successful toy drive this holiday season. Thanks to everyone involved!
We were excited to partner with Chobani for the first time last year. At their facility in Twin Falls, Idaho, they collected hundreds of wonderful used toys for children at One Church One Child, a state-run organization that helps place foster children in their forever homes. Chobani has industrial-sized scales, so they decided to weigh their donation. It tipped the scales at 541 pounds of donated plastic toys (see photo). Amazing!
Thank you, Chobani!
I never fully understood the idea that a toy can change a child’s life – until I met Anthony.
Anthony was one of the first children to receive a toy from Second Chance Toys – back in the early days. He and his brother were living in a homeless shelter in Newark, NJ at the time. Anthony picked the plastic dinosaur from the pile of gently loved toys we dropped off that holiday season. Like hundreds of thousands of other kids, Anthony was the recipient of one of our toy drives where we collect, clean and redistribute plastic toys to children in need. We do our part to help save the earth from non-biodegradable plastic – and we recycle love for kids.
Anthony’s mom recently told me that Anthony’s plastic dinosaur is still at the top of his toy pile today. You see, Anthony is really interested in science and the way the world works. And that toy dinosaur is inspiring him to pursue an education in the animal sciences – and become a scientist – to buy his mother a beautiful home so that she will never be homeless again.
This year, Second Chance Toys will mark its 10th Anniversary. I can’t believe it has been ten years since Sasha collected her first pile of toys off the curb one autumn day. It changed our lives forever. And it has changed the lives of more than a million disadvantaged children.
We now have requests from more than 650 recipient organizations for over 250,000 toys. We’ve come a long way from that first pile of toys but we still have so much more to accomplish. And we hope more businesses and families join us in this mission that could really change the world – and make a real difference in the lives of children.
Our Road to 10 kicks off this month. It’s a 10-month countdown where we’re asking for your help to keep efforts at Second Chance Toys going full throttle these upcoming 10 months.
So please donate $10, 10 x $10 or whatever you can afford. Tell 10 friends or colleagues about second Chance Toys. Think of 10 new ways you can help a child in need. And join us on our Road to 10 as we unveil a series of events, activities and funding opportunities.
Wishing you and yours – and all the children we serve through SCT – a fabulous 2016!
Shelly Lipton, SCT Board Chairman
Tashua Elementary School in Trumbull, CT held its 5th annual Second Chance Toy Drive this year and it was--once again, hugely successful! Families from the school and surrounding area (especially the 5th graders, who tied the toy drive into a service project) collected close to 1,000 toys. Below are some photos of their efforts, which also grabbed the attention of their local newspaper. Well done, Tashua!
A big thanks and congratulations to our partners at Kidville (and 1-800-GOT-JUNK?--who delivered the toys) for collecting more than a thousand toys at its multiplie collection locations across the NY Metro area. Way to go!
Another successful Toy Drive from Kidville!
Members of Johnson & Johnson's EarthServe Team from Raritan, NJ hand-delivered hundreds of toys to Refugee House Community Development in Bound Brook, NJ. Pictured below are some of the organization's employees with portions of the donation. Thanks, Johnson & Johnson!
Established by three school psychologists in New York, The Successful Child was created to help children become successful individuals, both academically and behaviorally. Providing an interactive approach to learning, The Successful Child team provides instruction related to reading, writing and math. Their curriculum is collaborative with schools and families, further customized to meet each child's particular abilities and needs.
In this SCT blog submission from the The Successful Child staff, it is explained how toys can actually prepare a child for long-term success both in and out of the classroom. A variety of skills can be developed from a play session, which emphasizes how learning is something that happens in more places than we realize. More information on their wonderful organization can be found at www.thesuccessfulchildny.com.
Photos from The Successful Child NY's first toy donation this holiday season,
delivered to the NY Council on Adopted Children
Toys: Kids’ Tools for Success
Guest post by The Successful Child NY
Why are toys so important for children? Often, they are simply used to keep kids occupied, but in reality, there’s so much more toys can do than “babysit.” Toys are actually instruments that can help children learn and discover the world! They are vital tools that stimulate child development, including cognitive, social, emotional and motor skills.
Here are some areas in which toys can play a crucial role in a child’s development:
Cognitive: Toys offer an opportunity to increase one’s concentration skills, promote problem-solving strategies, encourage imagination/abstract thinking and develop language skills. Items like board games and puzzles can also help increase dialogue and improve math skills.
Social: Toys help teach children about the society we live in and facilitate social skills. Playing with peers or adults helps to promote respect, cooperation, negotiation and sharing. Toys also allow children to actively explore many other important societal rules in a natural and safe environment.
Emotional: Toys offer children an opportunity to openly express themselves. Through playing with toys, children may gain the ability to identify, navigate, understand, process and work through feelings. By using pretend play with toys or creating a fantasy world, children are provided with an outlet to act out feelings and emotions. As a result, there is potential to increase emotional stability.
Motor: Beginning at birth, toys are used as motivators for children to use muscles and develop fine and gross motor skills. Toys assist children in discovering balance and coordination. Dolls and figures offer an opportunity to increase fine motor skills, by engaging in dressing, undressing and pretend feedings. Children also enhance their sense of touch and sight, which increase fine motor skills.
Tricycles, walkers, cars and playground equipment increase gross motor skills. These toys work on strengthening arms and legs. As a bonus, these activities give children further motivation to begin exercising at an early age, potentially avoiding the risks of childhood obesity.
In addition, a single toy can help children develop in a variety of areas.
For example, crayons and plastic blocks can enhance a child’s well-being in three areas at the same time.
Crayons:
Cognitive-Providing a creative outlet
Emotional- Insuring a visual outlet
Motor- Enhancing hand-eye coordination
Plastic blocks:
Cognitive- Promoting mathematical concepts
Social- Providing an opportunity to build and create with others
Motor-Using fine and gross motor muscles to build
When your child is “just playing” with toys, please understand that they are doing so much more -- they are learning and developing all at once!
Since it’s clear that toys may be crucial for a child’s development, it’s important that children play with toys beginning at an early age. Unfortunately, not all children have easy access to toys; those that do often outgrow toys quickly. Instead of tossing out perfectly good plastic toys that could be valuable to other children, consider sorting through old toys with your child. Explain the importance of giving back to others by recycling those toys to Second Chance Toys. They can go a long way in helping another child maximize his or her development.
The Successful Child offers a holistic and integrative experience in addressing behavior, social and academic skills. We offer custom-tailored services and fun classes that engage your child in learning and give them a competitive edge. For more information visit: www.thesuccessfulchildny.com
