A little girl, no older than three, in a gold and black sparkling dress runs over to a table covered in a variety of children’s toys. She throws the pink plastic horse from her hands across the room. Her eyes are locked on one thing only.
“Baby!” she screams as she jumps up to reach the foot of a baby doll from off the table. She hugs it tight to her chest and coddles it. “Baby,” she says a little gentler.
Across the room, a young boy, around five years old, stares in amazement at the table of colorful stuffed animals stacked high. After minutes of staring, barely blinking, he reaches gently for a brown stuffed dragon with a red tongue sticking out. He doesn’t let it go for the entire time he is in the room.
A mother walks around the room glancing from table to table, a baby no older than three months old strapped to her chest. Another father tries to wrangle his three kids in toy heaven across the whole room.
The Monroe County Public Library and Tandem Community Birth Center and Postpartum House hosted its second annual community toy swap Saturday and Sunday. The event brought in 208 people, according to Jon Stevens, children's services librarian at MCPL. On Saturday, community members brought in toys and children's books in good condition and were allowed access to “shop” through a variety of other toys and books. On Sunday, the toy swap was open to anyone, regardless of donation.
The tradition of the toy swap began last year in Bloomington. It started with Stevens, the co-creator of the community toy swap.
Stevens was a new parent at the time and wanted to declutter his house and save money during the holiday season. He reached out to Tandem to see what they could create with their combined resources, along with the Monroe County community.
This idea came to be with the help of Kathleen Regan-Wyant, another children's services librarian at the MCPL.
Last year, the swap only consisted of one day to shop. This year, Stevens said the event doubled in attendees, donation and shopping days.
At the front of the room, two volunteers sat and delicately wrapped each toy brought up to them at the gift-wrapping station.
One of those volunteers was Amonie Briner, who got involved through Tandem. It was her first year volunteering for the event.
“We recently have been trying to aim our volunteer work towards health care,” Briner said. “Specifically, women’s health care. So that was what made us get involved in this.”
Briner said Bloomington is a community with a lot of need, and giving back to the community is a huge goal for her in her volunteer work.
Another portion of the swap occurred in a separate room of the MCPL; a supervised children’s craft program.
Stevens said this was both for families to do something fun before or after attending the toy swap, as well as for parents who wanted to shop privately while their kids were occupied.
Stevens said he hopes this event will be grow years to come.
He hopes that each year, families of all backgrounds walk out of the event happy and that it brings the community together.
“Personally, I’ve come to realize that kids care less about fancy, new packaging for their toys,” Stevens said. “And that we as adults can unlearn the message from a lifetime of advertisements that a toy only has value if it’s brand new.”
For those who missed the first weekend of the toy swap, there will be one final event from 2-5 p.m. Dec. 20 at the Southwest branch of the Monroe County Public Library on. There is no donation required, and newly donated toys will be available.
Stevens said any toys that remain after the swap will be donated to various schools and charities.
“I hope that this event reminds folks that everybody in the community benefits, especially our children, when we are kind and share with one another,” Stevens said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include Tandem’s full name.
