Toys for Tots

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Every year, I make a trip to the dollar store and spend several hundreds of dollars on toys to donate for Christmas. My theory is, every child should have a new toy and I try to do my part. The toys are not the caliber of Barbie or the Sesame Street line but my hope has always been that it doesn't matter.
But now, with the scare of unsafe toys out of China, of course going to the dollar store is out. Certainly that's where all of those cheaper toys come from. But going to ToysRUs and purchasing maybe only 25 or 30 toys, opposed to the 100's I could buy before, kind of takes the wind out of my sails. I want to get the most bang for my buck and could use some suggestions. Or some help in getting my head on straight about it. Rolling Eyes

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What a cool thing for you to do, eoe. Every child does deserve a new toy at Christmastime!

I was thinking of http://www.orientaltrading.com/ being a good place for you to look but I don't know how careful they are about product inspection to avoid problems like we're seeing with the Chinese imports.

Do you have a Big Lots there? They have some good prices sometimes.

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Thanks boomer. Oriental Trading Co. does have very cute and colorful toys and the prices are terrific, even better than the dollar store but...I'd bet my pinky toe that every one of those cute colorful little suckers are out of China. But what if one stuck to just the stuffed animals and the plush toys? Are those as hazardous as the painted ones?

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Many of the Toys R' Us products were involved in the lead problem / Chinese imports. It wasn't just the cheap toys. Even their bibs had lead.

Oriental Trading is the same thing - mostly Chinese, maybe some made in Taiwan.

Not sure what the solution is. We are doing a Toys for Tots drive in the community, too and I had wondered what to get.

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BIBS! How in the hell are bibs contaminated by lead???

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I think it was in the paint used for the Geoffrey Giraffe design.

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Oh! The designs are painted on the fabric? Or were the bibs plastic?
(Forgive me. I just find that both disturbing and fascinating.)

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Do you have an Ikea close to you?

They have a lot of great toys that are cheap. Not huge variety, but you could still get a LOT for a couple of hundred dollars.

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Oh hey, check this out:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/

Click on the "$1 is a fortune" box on the far right.

Your dollars can do double duty!

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Oh! Good idea Soz. We do have an Ikea here.

And what a great offer that is. For every dollar, they donate a dollar. It can't get any better than that.

Did you see the blund bear for 1.99? How cute is that???

http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/8972/bearfc5.png

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Super cute!

A lot of sozlet's toys have come from Ikea, she loves them and they've been quite sturdy too. (Oldest one is about 7 years old now...)

The first Ikea in Ohio will be opening next spring -- not in Columbus, darn it (I lobbied 'em!), but still much closer than the current closest ones. Can't wait.

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In Raleigh at The Men's Club.. they do "Toys 'for Ta Tas" every year. It's cool.

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Good to see you back Bear but please...we're talking about the babies here. Rolling Eyes

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Ta-Tas are for babies.

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Lead in bibs article

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squinney wrote:

Ta-Tas are for babies.

good one, girlfriend.

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By the way, I just went through the same runaround I remember going through when I tried to donate last year. Then I found out that ALL Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores are taking donations through December 9th.

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2474404

So I can finally do it this year! Thanks for the reminder, eoe.

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squinney wrote:

Lead in bibs article

Add another to the list; getting bizarre ain't it?

Toy contaminated with 'date rape' drug pulled

I would be kinda afraid to donate toys to strangers; could be sued if later it is found to have some kind of lead poisoning or, Lord forbid, date rape in it.

Why not donate money to parents at christmas time and let them buy their kids what they want?

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Soz, can you check the tags on the Sozlet's IKEA toys to see where they were made? I'm curious.

I just received a reminder today from the One laptop per Child organization. For 399.00, you can buy a laptop for a child in a developing nation and you'll get a second laptop to give to your own kid. Or whoever. My plan is to maybe donate it to my neighborhood school as a prize for the highest scores at the end of the school year.

I may do this and then pick up a few toys at IKEA and that ought to do it.

The news today about the beads was heartstopping. How in the hell can a child's bead, when ingested, have the same properties as a drug is beyond ridiculous. It leaves you speechless.

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Yeah.

A lot of these stories are about toys being ingested and you'd really hope that parents wouldn't give their kids toys that could be swallowed until they're old enough to self-regulate. But yeah.

Sozlet's sleeping now, I'll check some tags later for you though.

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