Blog
Our first drive with Second Chance Toys could not have gone any better! We have many parents with all different backgrounds in our department at Capital One and this organization really touched many of their hearts on a personal level. We were matched with a local YMCA that picked up the toys and even gave one of us a hug saying "Thank you! This is the biggest donation we have gotten this year!" It was really inspiring to watch everyone come together for a good cause and to help the kids have a wonderful holiday season. I will never forget this opportunity and organization. I will always share the experience and how wonderful everyone was!
SCT was so easy to work with and if I had any questions or concerns their quick replies made it flawless with no stress at all! Thank you for giving us this opportunity SCT!
In Trumbull, CT we have been collecting via the Second Chance Toys model for many years. Early on we posted flyers, put adds in the paper, had local politicians show up for press shots, but as we spoke to people dropping toys off, the response as to how did you hear about us was almost uniform…Facebook.
In Trumbull, we have the Moms Facebook page, the Dads page, the school pages, the Republican-tilt page, the Democrat-tilt page. If we put our drive announcement on those pages, we reach everyone in town who is paying attention. Ten minutes of marketing, maybe two or three times before kick-off and we are guaranteed 500+ used toys year in, year out. Apart from the December weather during the holiday collections (surprise…people still drop off when it's snowing), the part to plan for is the back end. Second Chance Toys arranges wherever possible for the organizations to pick up the toys. Occasionally, that is not always possible. Befriend someone with a truck! Apart from that, if you have a location to store the toys, you are all set. If there is an issue with your donation, our friends at Second Chance Toys are whizzes at rectifying any the situation.
This is a great project for high schoolers or a service organization. Keep score and in a short time you will be able to say thousands of toys went to as many children in need for a second chance, instead of to a landfill.
For the past 10 years in a row, Temple Sharaay Tefila has been mobilizing parents and kids to donate their outgrown plastic toys to benefit local children in need. Their participation year after year, which has helped tens of thousands of children and kept as many pounds of plastic out of our landfills, exemplifies Tikkun Olam, a Jewish concept defined by acts of kindness to help repair the world.
Every year our partners, 1-800-GOT-JUNK? help us by picking up the large collection of toys at Sharaay Tefila and delivering them to the designated organization. This year P.S. 112, Jose Celso Barbosa School, was the recipient and each child got to pick out a toy. Both the students and staff were delighted.
Congregant Alan Branfman, has coordinated the synagogue's drives year after year and makes it a point to attend the toy distribution at the organization itself. "There is nothing like seeing the children's faces light up when they are given a good-as-new colorful toy," he exclaimed. "It is wonderful to be able to have such a huge impact on so many children simply through reuse of outgrown toys," he continued.
Second Chance Toys is especially grateful for the participation and toy donations of the Sharaay Tefila nursery school. Many people were directly involved in making the collection such a success, including: Amy Schwach (Executive Director), Bonnie Blanco (Early Childhood Director), Jennifer Blaustein (Early Childhood Committee Chair), Taylor Chesney and Laura Erlich (Parents Association Co-Leaders) and Allison Dwork and Ali Berkley (Mitzvah Moms).
Thank you all for your continued participation and goodwill. Second Chance Toys is so very grateful.
Since 2015, Ridgewood Savings Bank has collected toys for Second Chance Toys. This year, with Amral Khan once again spearheading the collection, the bank brought in an amazing 300 gently used plastic toys to benefit Cienfuegos Foundation in Queens, NY. Bethania Perkins, Cienfuegos Foundation founder exclaimed, "We are so grateful for the efforts of Ridgewood Savings Bank and honored to be the recipients of these wonderful toys that help the children we serve in numerous ways."
Thank you Ridgewood Savings Bank for your dedication and goodwill. We greatly appreciate all that you do!
The Coolidge School Green Team's mission is to help foster for students an appreciation and respect for nature while being conscientious of our impact on the environment and helping others. Second Chance Toys is a perfect partner with its core mission to give to others while keeping plastic out of landfills!
For 3 weeks leading up to the holidays, Coolidge students donated gently used toys which were cleaned and sorted by our "Green Ambassadors" for delivery to Community Outreach Services in Paterson. Reverend Brown and his friends graciously received hundreds of toys that would be part of the children's center. There was lots of love and gratitude shared by all!
Coolidge is grateful to have been a part of such a special green project with Second Chance Toys that benefitted Community Outreach Services.
Katie Chardoussin, a parent of two children, in Warren County, NJ, contacted us last fall to see how she and her children could participate in a collection of gently used plastic toys. She was interested in the fact that they could learn from this experience firsthand from the experience and benefit from the teachable moments that Second Chance Toys provides.
They tackled the collection head on by contacting friends, family and neighbors to donate. Their very first effort yielded an incredible 150 toys! Second Chance Toys matched their collection with Norwescap Family Success Center. Katie and her children asked if they could deliver the toys themselves and add to the life lessons her children could experience.
After they dropped off the toys, Katie noted, " Today we dropped off the 150 toys our family collected to Denise at Norwescap! She added, "It was such a great experience for our family, especially my children, who have a new meaning of giving!"
Many thanks to the Chardoussin family for your amazing donation of toys and for recognizing the benefits that your own children can reap from our collection experience.
For many years now, Viacom has been participating twice yearly with Second Chance Toys to help collect and clean toys for children in need. During the holidays, we have been able to count on the good work of the controllers group, that consistently collects large numbers of beautiful and good-as-new plastic toys for us year after year. "It is always fun and rewarding to see our efforts going to make children happy," said Wanda Farag, who spearheaded the controllers' collection. "We look forward to this every year and save up our toys in anticipation," she added.
With sustainability a priority at Viacom, Anthony Agate, Senior Director, Event Operations & Food Services, arranged for his group to participate as well. He asked everyone to bring a gently used plastic toy to the holiday party celebrated by various teams. They not only collected a good number of toys, but Anthony also arranged for delivery of all the toys collected by both groups at Viacom.
The children at Malcom X II Phase B low income housing apartments were the beneficiaries of the beautiful toys that brought lots of holiday cheer for them and their parents.
Thank you Viacom!
Second Chance Toys was thrilled to work with two Brooklyn Boulders locations that volunteered to collect toys for the holidays. They put the word out to their respective communities, Gowanus and Queensbridge and in a little over two weeks' time they both received an overwhelming response. When asked how they felt about their first collection, Griffin Sweet of Brooklyn Boulders Queensbridge noted, "We were happy to provide our communities with a responsible way to get rid of their outgrown toys." Adding to that, Carina Finn of Brooklyn Boulders Gowanus said, "Knowing that the toys would end up in the hands of local children in need really resonated with our clients"
Brooklyn Boulders Gowanus and Queensbridge collected 200 and 170 toys respectively. Thank you for providing a drop off location to your communities and for making a tremendous impact!
We are so grateful for the enthusiastic participation of the Island Heights Environmental Committee that collected 50+ beautiful and good-as-new toys. They were thrilled to keep them out of the waste stream and put them into the hands of children at local organization, O.C.E.A.N / Head Start L.E.A.P. in Ocean County, NJ. Pictured here is Tanara Hall helping a representative from O.C.E.A.N. load up the toys to be loved once again!
Second Chance Toys recently designated Archer Elementary School in the Bronx (NY) to receive a collection of toys. The toys have had a huge impact on many of the students, used not only for play at recess, but in the classrooms and very importantly, in counseling sessions.
This is about two of the many students that were positively impacted by the donation of toys. The boys in the photo have personal challenges and are having difficulty coping with overwhelming emotions. It has been affecting their classroom behaviors and academics. They will throw tantrums in the classroom, oftentimes fight with their peers, and run away from the classroom.
As we started using the donated toys in the counseling sessions, they have become more expressive and motivated to make positive choices. They are learning proper social and emotional skills through play, and it is helping them in and outside of the classroom. As their guidance counselor, I can definitely see that they have enhanced self-esteem, despite their challenges at home.
Chisa Sealy is a guidance counselor at Archer Elementary School in the Bronx.
They are the companies that support the Second Chance Toys mission with their participation and generous grants. You can find their logos proudly displayed on our homepage. If you click on any one of them, you will read about their participation and generosity that help further our mission. From conducting collections, cleanings and transporting the toys, to staging promotions and multi-office participation in various states, these companies have made a real difference for Second Chance Toys.
It all began with the vision of Ron Lottermann, director of Fair Lawn Recycling Center, and their collection conducted over 8 years ago. Since then, the joint program has evolved into a year-round collection in which we bring a corporate team of volunteers once a year to inspect, clean and bag the toys for donation. About 25-30 Viacom volunteers sign up to participate every year in the spring in conjunction with their Viacommunity Day, a day of community service performed by their employees the world over.
At the end of the 3-hour event, in which approximately 1,000 toys are prepped to be loved and played with again, our friends at 1-800-GOT-JUNK? volunteer to load up their trucks and transport the toys to local organizations that have signed up to receive our toys.
This turnkey program is so efficient and brings in such large numbers of toys, that we have since begun to replicate the program in recycling centers throughout New Jersey. Why are the recycling centers so interested? Their environmentally-conscious constituents not only love the idea, but it saves the town the costs of having to dispose of the plastic toys as refuse.
In addition to Fair Lawn Recycling, the centers that are now participating include Paramus Department of Public Works, Upper Saddle River Recycling Depot, Westfield Conservation Center, Holmdel Recycling Drop Off Center, Montgomery Township Public Works Department and Eatontown Department of Public Works. There are currently opportunities available for corporate teams to participate in these fun and engaging programs in the spring. Please contact us on our corporate sponsorships page if you are interested in having an employee engagement team participate.
For the 8th year in a row, the Downingtown Area School District (DASD), Downingtown, PA, has been conducting a holiday toy collection. After their individual schools are finished collecting the toys, they are all rounded up to a central location for pickup. This year was nothing less than AMAZING!! DASD was able to collect and donate 500 toys to local children served by nine locations of Gordon Head Start in nearby Coatesville, PA.
"We were thrilled by the overwhelming response to the collection this year," stated Crystal Van Hoorebeke, who coordinates the collection. "After all these years, parents have come to expect this collection and save up their childrens' outgrown toys so that others can reap the benefits," she added.
Over the years, DASD has made quite an impact with the thousands of toys they have donated to help children and the environment. Second Chance Toys is so grateful for the continued participation and enthusiasm of DASD. Thank you everyone!
Our friends at Teich Toys & Books, located in Manhattan, certainly know how to run a collection of gently used plastic toys. Their enthusiasm and promotion of the collection guaranteed that their recipient organizations, Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), would be getting a beautiful and bountiful selection of good-as-new toys. According to Allison McGowan, owner Teich Toys & Books, "Collecting the toys really puts everyone in the holiday spirit of giving. Our customers also appreciate that we are providing a responsible way for them to get rid of their outgrown toys!"
As shown in the photo, KIND put all the toys on display so that each child could select a holiday gift. Second Chance Toys is very lucky to have Teich Toys & Books as a collection partner. They have not only demonstrated their generosity with a collection, but they have supported us to help further our mission as well. Thank you, Teich Toys & Books!
We love getting thank you notes from the organiztions that benefit from your toy donations. Here's a cute one we received from the Judy Center in Montgomery, MD after they received a 100 toy donation from the Village Montessori School!
Ross School fourth graders invited all students, grades Nursery to 12, to donate gently used plastic toys for their Second Chance Toys collection. Students decorated boxes and created posters for all the buildings on their campus. The students created skits about the project, showcasing themselves not knowing what to do with their older, but gently loved toys. They presented these skits at a Lower School assembly and Upper School Town Hall. Students accepted donations for a week. Every day, they collected toys from the boxes around campus and tallied the totals. On the last day, students tallied they had collected 656 toys, books, and games!
We can always count on McGinn Elementary in Scotch Plains, NJ, to make it happen. This holiday, the fourth graders cleaned 465 toys for donation. Community Coordinated Childcare, Rahway, NJ was able to distribute the beautiful good as new toys to their proud new owners!
"It feels great, especially this time of year, knowing that our efforts are going to help those less fortunate," stated Kelly Sacchetti, parent coordinator of the gently used plastic toy drive. "Because our community rallies every year, we are able to collect hundreds of toys in just one hour," she added proudly.
Second Chance Toys is grateful for their continued and bountiful collections. Thank you, McGinn!!
The Sara Walker Nursery School at the JCC in Stamford, CT, collected gently used plastic toys for their third year in a row! This year's collection yielded 200 toys that were donated to benefit the children served by the Child Guidance Center of Mid-Fairfield.
Anne Johnson, Managing Director, who spearheaded the collection, noted, "It is never too early to get our children thinking about giving to others in need."
The collection was truly a benefit, not only for the children that received the toys, but for those that gave as well. Happy Holidays for all.
Our friends at 1-800-GOT-JUNK? not only volunteer to transport large collections of toys to organizations serving children in need, but in the case of Rick Galliher, franchise partner Northern Virginia, they also collect toys as well!!
In order to ready the couple of hundred toys for play, we enlisted the help of Mac Aerospace employees. They were incredibly eager to volunteer their time and put some muscle into a few hours of cleaning and bagging the toys. As a result, the children served by Centro de Apoyo Familiar, in Falls Church, received beautiful toys for the holidays.
"This event not only touched our hearts, to be able to spruce up the plastic toys like new for deserving kids, but it brought us all together outside the office and bonding in a different light," commented Jenny Brown, Chief of Staff, Mac Aerospace Corp. "It was both fun and fulfilling."
1-800-GOT-JUNK? has already started collecting again with an eye towards our Earth Month collection, and the folks at Mac Aerospace are enthusiastic about the prospects of participating again in the future.
Thank you all for making a difference!!
Amidst all of the wonderful NEW toy drives during the holidays, the folks from the Tashua School USED Toy Drive would like to thank those who donated their gently used plastic toys this season. As a result of your generosity, we were able to collect about 750 used toys and drop them with five grateful recipient organizations: the YMCA Youth Center, IRIS Refugee Services, Iglesia Cristiana Estrella Resplandeciente de Jacob and the BAQIS Fellowship, all based in New Haven, as well as, Trumbull’s own Child First. When you ask a recipient if they can use the donation, and the reply is “These people we serve have nothing,” you feel proud that Trumbull was able to give something. Thanks again, Happy Holidays, and see you next year.
