Think of the children. Please. Think of the children.

I would like to extend a challenge to fellow DU'ers.
In 3 months, the Christmas holiday will be upon us. It sneaks up on me every year--not sure how it does you.
I would like to start a toy drive NOW for the children of this tragedy.
It's an easy way for everyone to do something meaningful and special.
In the past few years, Toys for Tots, as well as the Angel Trees and other organizations that gather toys for needy families has been strained. Adding 100,000+ kids to the mix will be an enormous strain on already stretched resources.
This is my challenge to you.
Each month until Christmas--buy ONE toy for a child. Tuck it away in your closet. That will be 4 gifts per person from those that choose to participate.
If 10,000 (a small portion of our membership) participate--we will have 40,000 gifts to disperse to the children of this tragedy.
In December, we can coordinate the dispersal of these gifts.
How about it? Who is in this with me?

Thanks for bringing it up.

idea!

I play Santa every year for several kids anyway. No problem adding a few more to my list.

Great idea!!

Do you think toys for tots will also be concentrating on these smallest victims?

We will coordinate with these other organizations as an entity and make sure all the kids are taken care of.

I am very, very fortunate to have found a good-paying job (after three years) and am happy to share.

:hi:

idea, thanks for posting!

bookmarked and nominated!

When I was a little girl I was pathologically attached to my teddy bear. Think of all those kids with nothing... and some kids have surely lost their parents.

sign me up. I know my momma will want to help too.

The other thing to remember...Halloween is coming up too. Gotta make sure those kids get candy. :)

:)

them for the children of New Orleans.

Should we wrap them or not?
We did this for our wedding...toys for needy kids instead of wedding presents you know? and it was a problem if the gift was wrapped not knowing if it was for a boy or a girl. So
I suggest if you wrap the present maybe put a tag on it: boy or girl and approx age.
Just a thought from experience .
This is a GREAT idea by the way. We are way in on this one.
GO DU!

For now let's not.
We will have to sidle up with another agency to distribute these and we will have to see what their policy is.

I'm not 100% sure why, but they do.

That way they can pull anything that might have been recalled without the purchaser knowing.

great idea. :)

with nothing...no toys, no "love'es" (ie blanket, stuffed animal to hold) and I've been thinking they could desperatly need that to comfort them.

Not that your idea isn't a real good one, but I can't but help feel that we need to do something sooner than X-mas...

I've also been thinking these kids (many of them) are going to need to go to school and maybe we can organize school supplies for these hurricane victim children.

I'm going to have no problem organizing donations, the biggest challenge is the "distribution".

But I would hate to think that by Christmas things might be different--American Idol will be going on you know--so this isn't "instead of" anything, it is "in addition to".

:hug: Bless you!

Just let me know when the time comes where to send.. what a great idea.

I've been watching qvc all summer--they frequently have great Christmas shows, with wonderful deals on toys!

:thumbsup:

Target has a line of toys called KoolToyz. They are knockoffs of the more popular, more expensive Barbies, Bratz, etc.

I am putting this out there because a small child won't know the difference and to a small child or even a larger child, the ability to 'knock a kid out' with the amount received has always been important to me.

Some of these toys run $5. Certainly doable.