Santa’s adjunct workshop at Mary Herbert Learning Center is in full swing this season, with 22 students busy repairing bicycles, washing stuffed animals and mending broken toys.
Clear bags of clean, stuffed animals line the walls on row after row of book shelves; dolls, board games, puzzles and other toys, also bagged and ready, sit on other shelves. They are surrounded by bicycles of all sizes, including those with 12-inch wheels, 10-speeds, mountain bikes and dirt bikes.
Before the holiday season ends, students at The Toy Shoppe plan to give away the toys to make Christmas a little merrier for children.
The class plans to set up its toy store at the Flinthills Mall from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 11. Pickups also can be made at the classroom.
“A lot of times, our challenge isn’t so much getting things to fix, it’s getting them out, distributing them,” said Mike McDougald, team leader, referring to the process of giving away a few thousand gifts for children.
Justin Krueger, 12, one of the class’s most enthusiastic workers, busied himself repairing a bicycle wheel on Tuesday morning, while others were cleaning and repairing other toys. Shannon Foxen, transition paraprofessional, sat cross-legged on the floor, ready to provide a second pair of hands to hold the bike when needed.
About 50 bikes should be available when the toy distribution begins in earnest, but a number of them still need to be fixed and painted, and more bicycles are needed.
Justin single-handedly organized a toy collection in his hometown, Olpe, to help increase The Toy Shoppe’s inventory. He met with Olpe Elementary School principal Bill Warner to get students there involved with the project.
“We ended up with a vanload of toys from Olpe,” McDougald said. “The neat thing is, for a student his age, he has the whole idea of community service. ... He’s always wanting to help others. That’s the whole idea of The Toy Shoppe, learning to help others.”
Justin said he took on the collection project because “families don’t have no toys to play with.” He was happy to collect items to fix and give away — and he wants more people to donate.
The class, operated through the Flint Hills Education Cooperative, brings students together from Emporia and surrounding counties to learn through work experience and to help others, as well. The students range from grades 4 through 11.
The class is operated through the “Learn and Serve America” grant.
“In Kansas, I think we’re one of the longer-running grants,” McDougald said.
The Toy Shoppe initially operated in an auxiliary building east of Lowther North Intermediate School, and later in the basement of the school, before moving three years ago to its new home at Mary Herbert, where it is the only full-time class with students.
The class accepts donations — broken toys and bicycles, puzzles, dolls and stuffed animals — from the community and restores them to give away not only at Christmas, but throughout the year.
The washable stuffed animals and dolls are run through an on-site washer and dryer set-up, with heavier pieces hung up to dry naturally.
“Students are the ones that pretty much do all the restoring and recycling, trying to get things back into the community,” McDougald said.
Sometimes bikes and toys are beyond repair, so the students salvage usable parts and take what remains to be recycled.
For its ongoing efforts, the class received the Community Area Recycling Excellence Award in 2002 from the Emporia City Commission and Recycling Board.
The class has placed boxes at Reeble’s North and South Country Marts and Price Chopper grocery store, and will pick up donations, too, if necessary. Arrangements can be made by calling 341-2332.
Batteries for electronic and mechanical toys and clothes for all sizes also are needed to make the toys more like-new for the children who receive them.
Although the majority of the restored toys are given away to the public, the class supplies bicycles to schools to provide incentives to the students, McDougald said, and will also give to nonprofit agencies, organizations and other schools that need the merchandise.
The students receive something back in return for their work: experience and skills they can use later in life.
“A lot of times it’s problem-solving,” McDougald said. “Not only that, they have to figure out what’s next. For a lot of students, this provides hands-on experience and learning a lot of actual pre-employment skills” like staying on-task, asking for direction when needed, and what they need to do next.
“A lot of things we sometimes take for granted,” McDougald said.
The Toy Shoppe is open from 8:15 to 11 a.m. and from noon to 3:15 Mondays through Fridays. Arrangements can be made for evening or weekend pickup or delivery when necessary.