Toy Corner hopes to fill a need year-round

Ten-year-old Kayla Drentlaw needs 100 toys for Christmas. Well, she wants 100 toys — she would settle for 50. But here's the catch — the toys aren't for Kayla. She's collecting for a local charity called the Toy Corner.

"I felt sad that some kids don't get any presents," said Kayla, who lives in Prior Lake with her family. "I get a lot, way more than I can count!"

If the Toy Corner succeeds, even children living in poverty will be able to say they have more toys than they can count. The new organization is a place for low-income families from the communities of Savage, Shakopee and Prior Lake to get free toys for their children.

"It's kind of like a food shelf, but instead of food we have toys," said Katie Vander Weit, co-founder of the Toy Corner. "Parents can come in and shop our shelves, and they leave with the toys they pick, stuffed animals and books."

To ensure that they have enough toys to keep supplying families, who are invited to come back every other month, the shop will stock both new and gently used toys. And unlike programs like Toys for Tots, which only provides gifts during the Christmas season, the Toy Corner will be open year-round.

"A kid loves to get a toy in July just as much as he does in December," said Barney Dolby, a Toy Corner volunteer and board member. "That's the unique part about this. We're here 52 weeks a year."

The Toy Corner opened its doors in November, and has been ramping up. Vander Weit and her co-founder, Susie Williams, started by focusing on collecting toys for the organization, and they have been overwhelmingly successful. They have collection bins all around town that overflow with donations, and the Prior Lake Lions Club gave them a $1,500 donation to buy new toys.

On a recent Tuesday morning, the small rectangular room that houses the shop is full of toys, neatly organized by target age. But the hall into the room is lined with bags and boxes of recent donations, and when a woman stops with her two sons to drop off a couple of armloads of toys, the stacks get a little higher. In the corner, a refrigerator-sized cabinet is brimming with donations from a Little Tikes representative, who gave them a stash of her sample toys.

Seeking clients

Now that the Toy Corner is fully stocked and open for business, Vander Weit and Williams are turning their attention from finding donors to finding clients. So far, the Toy Corner is only working with two families.

"A lot of people don't quite know that we're here yet," Vander Weit said. But she's confident that publicity and outreach to organizations that serve needy families will attract more visitors. They recently met with a pastor from Shakopee, and less than a week after the meeting, one of his parishioners stopped by the Toy Corner.

The Savage office building that houses the Toy Corner is not readily accessible by public transit. If that turns out to be a serious issue, Vander Weit and Williams said they're considering bringing the toys to the communities they serve.

The Toy Corner has been in the works since last January. Vander Weit and Williams found themselves with a lot of free time now that their children are grown, and they were looking for a project to help the community.

Starting the Toy Corner was actually Dolby's idea. Williams is his daughter, and when she told him that she was looking for a volunteer project, he suggested visiting the Toy Shelf, a similar charity in North St. Paul. "We went and we toured it and fell in love — hook, line and sinker," Williams said. The Toy Shelf has been incredibly supportive, offering advice on starting the Toy Corner and even giving them the little red wagon that has become their logo.

After they decided to start the Toy Corner, they needed to find an affordable location. When Williams' husband bought a commercial building in Savage, she and Vander Weit jumped at the chance to open the Toy Corner in a small office. Although the space isn't perfect, the price is just right — they pay $1 a year in rent.

"We strictly run with volunteers. There is no money that goes toward any staffing," Williams said. "So every dollar except for that one goes toward buying toys for our clients."

Scott County may seem like a strange place to open a food shelf for toys. The median household income is $86,000 per year, more than $25,000 higher than the statewide average. The poverty rate is only 5.5 percent, less than half the rate in the rest of the state. But Vander Weit and Williams, who both live in Prior Lake, believe the community still needs charities like the Toy Corner.

"Scott County is a wealthier county," Williams said. "But there are the extremes on both ends. And unfortunately, with the wealth of our county, the amount of assistance money that comes out is minimal."

With local supporters like Kayla Drentlaw, however, the Toy Corner should have little trouble meeting the demand for toys.

In order to reach her goal, Kayla has been going door-to-door in her neighborhood asking for donations with her sister, Emily, and a couple of friends. Kayla has also asked her family to skip most of her Christmas presents and give her toys for the Toy Corner instead. But she still wants the chance to unwrap them like regular gifts.

"I like opening presents and looking at what they are, and then I like putting them in the bin," said Kayla, who is confident she can resist the temptation to keep toys meant for the Toy Corner. "My grandpa told me if I wanted them then other kids would want them, so then I should give them."

For further information about the Toy Corner, go to www.thetoycorner.org/ or call 952-230-6356

Dylan Peers McCoy is a Twin-Cities based freelance writer.