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If your children aren’t playing with those toys in their room anymore, or have outgrown them, now is the time to donate them to Combined Community Services’ annual Toy Time, which is in its 32nd year.
Or donate new, unwrapped toys.
Monday was the first day for the community to donate gently used, playable toys and Ami Pitt, CCS Project Independence caseworker and longtime volunteer, said they had almost 2,000 items by about 4 p.m., having started at 9 a.m.
“It’s been a busy day, but it’s been a good day so the sale Saturday is going to be wonderful,” she said.
They will continue to take playthings in from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day through this Thursday at the Home & Family Arts Building at the Kosciusko County fairgrounds in Warsaw.
“People have been coming in and dropping off some really great toys this year,” she said.
The public sale is 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 13 and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 14. Consignors get to shop early Friday night, and Pitt expects to have the building filled up.
“First day and this room is about almost half full,” she said.
Consignors can either keep 50% of the money that is collected when their items are sold, or let CCS keep all of the money to be used to purchase new toys for the Toy Giveaway. Everything that doesn’t sell is donated to be rehomed as Christmas gifts.
“If it does sell, we’re going to turn that money into new toys. So we’re trying to turn them into new toys. If they don’t, we rehome them. It can be a 50-50 split, or you can just donate everything, and then if it sells, we get to use all of the money to purchase new toys,” she said.
Pitt is expecting this year to be a little low in the new toy area. ABATE (American Bikers Aimed Toward Education) comes in and helps, providing baby and teen items and bicycles. The money generated from the toy sale Saturday and Sunday goes toward purchasing new toys.
“So new toy donations are necessary also,” she said. “We have about 1,500 children to get Christmas for.”
Pitt said there’s a big need this year.
“Combined Community Services did Adopt-A-Family. There were 130 families there. I know Salvation Army is doing their Angel Tree. After Toys for Tots fills up Salvation Army, Combined Community Services, then they send their families to us and we’re that catch-all. Then they come and we do a short in-take at the door, and they get to shop for free, the things that didn’t sell, and then we add new things with that and send them home, hopefully with about four gifts per child, some stocking stuffing things, and they take them home and put them under their own tree for Christmas,” Pitt explained.
ABATE Kosciusko, the Wabash Foundation, Lake City Bank, the Kosciusko County Fairgrounds and many volunteers make Toy Time possible year after year.
Pitt said the volunteers normally price about 20,000 toys in about four days for the toy sale. About 50 volunteers throughout the day Monday came in at various times to help price the toys and check them out to make sure they’re still playable.
“We go through and make sure that everything is clean and playable and has its pieces and all of that good stuff,” she stated.
At the toy sale, they will have batteries to test the toys to make sure they work, if the toy requires batteries.
Donations of Bibles also are being accepted. They are given out during the giveaway. Pitt said Warsaw Community Church has been providing Bibles, which is wonderful, but they still take donations.
“We don’t know it’s Christmas until we make sure 1,500 kids have Christmas, and then it’s Christmas,” Pitt said. “We just want to love the families that come. We want to show the love of Jesus. We want to give them Jesus and toys, what better package can you get than that right there.”
For questions, volunteer opportunities or ways to get involved, contact Pitt at 574-797-0208.
