Second Chance Toy Story is a part of the Dreamstarter initiative. Funded by ING DIRECT Australia, Dreamstarter provides support to selected StartSomeGood campaigns to help them reach their fundraising goals. Learn more about
the social entrepreneurs and campaigns they support at
ingdirect.com.au/dreamstarter
What's the Story?
The average Australian household with dependants owns in excess of 100 toys and one in four families with children spend more than $500 per child per year on toys.
But there are also thousands of children that don't have access to good quality toys to play with and learn from.
Why Toys?
Every child has the right to play - it’s an essential part of learning and growing.
Toys are vital to a child’s development as they help with creativity and imagination. Playing with toys also teaches sharing, communication and social skills.
It’s often assumed that all children have access to toys but the reality is very different. Second Chance Toys provides a waste-need solution to this. Unwanted toys, that are still useable, are rescued and prepared for
distribution to children in need through local community organisations.
Who are we?
The team at Second Chance Toys are all passionate about providing toys to children and keeping them from becoming waste in landfills. Cheryl Staddon founded SCT based on a USA Charity and after seeing many plastic toys
in excellent condition being discarded on Council clean-ups and also when trying to re-house her own children's good quality toys that were not being used. "I hated the thought of these great toys going to waste and once I researched who might like these toys,
I was amazed by how many local organisations would be very happy to receive them".
Our focus for Second Chance Toys in 2013 is to expand from toy drives in Southern Sydney to a network of toy drives and drop-offs across Greater Sydney and Rural NSW.
What we need?
To facilitate the expansion we need to produce marketing materials to get the word out there and assist in toy collection and promotion. We also need to improve our website to make it more informative and interactive for
volunteers and donors, as well as engage organisations and corporates in toy donations on a large scale.
The marketing materials we require include stickers for collection boxes, toy donation signage, banners and information packs for Schools and Corporates.
The revamped website will be our shop window and is key to our expansion.
Who do we help?
The beneficiaries are children and families in Australia who are subject to poverty, helplessness, suffered misfortune and have been identified as having a need to access toys.
We have received requests for toys in Orange, Bathurst, Central Cost and in Campbelltown Sydney.
Our recipients over the past two years have included Villawood Detention Residential Housing Unit, Mission Australia Goulburn Family Services, Communicare Rockdale, Namatijira Housing Group La Perouse, Settlement Services
International and many more.
We have waiting list of over 100 organisations throughout NSW that would love toys to give to their kids, in particular we have many refugee groups that need donated toys as these children have no toys at all.
With increased marketing and awareness of Second Chance Toys we would be donating wonderful toys to thousands of children across NSW and saving these toys from landfill.
