A great way to get more for your money is to not spend any! Do I speak for all of us when I say my house is full of toys my kids don't play with anymore that just collect dust and take up space? Well, I say out with the old and in with the new-to-me toys from someone else. I'm talking about a Toy Swap, and professional organizer Jennifer Hunter is sharing all that she learned when she hosted a Swap herself.--Diana
Have you ever noticed that your kids love playing with other people’s toys? Bins of plastic, plush, and glitter sit neglected in their rooms, but when they visit friends, they’re entertained for hours. Who doesn’t love novelty? As a professional organizer, I put that to work in my advantage when it comes to decluttering.
Whenever I work in a household with kids, there are inevitably many more toys sitting neglected than are being enjoyed. I’ll estimate a ratio of two-thirds to one-third.
Unfortunately, last summer, paring down the numbers was proving a challenge for me. At the time, Salvation Army and Goodwill in my area (Boston, MA) were not accepting toy donations because of the lead paint scare. (They have since relaxed the rules somewhat.) I had a couple of other options: The Children’s Clothing Exchange and a home daycare center by me that sent toys to India. But for most of my clients, there was no convenient way to drop off their unwanted toys.
Another snag: It’s not always easy for kids to let things go. Even something they’ve left at the bottom of the toy chest for two years without a thought, when they’re faced with the possibility of losing it, becomes a new favorite. So they have to get some kind of motivation, I decided, that will make the loss worthwhile. The parents are paying me to help them declutter, but not at the cost of traumatizing their youngsters.
Some friends of mine have a tradition of clothing swaps. Over a few hours in an afternoon, we bring our unwanted clothing to the host’s home, sort the stuff out with some taped-up signs, and we try things on and take home what we like. The host bags up the mountain of clothing left, and brings it to Goodwill for a tax deduction. Everybody wins, and it proves that “something for nothing” really does exist. (I get the most compliments on my clothing-swap clothes.)
All this gave me the idea of doing a swap with toys instead of clothing. I also thought it might be a good opportunity to promote my organizing business to local folks. I looked around online to see if anyone had done it before, and there were glimmers, but not much in terms of how to structure it. I had to build this project from square one.
Here were some of the questions I had to answer:
1. Where will the toy swap be held? A living room isn’t going to cut it.
2. How do we donate the leftover toys?
3. Who will help me with this? What’s their motivation?
4. How do we get the word out, without spending any money?
5. How do we prevent a free-for-all, toy-grabbing melee?
6. How can we set aside time to get the space ready in advance?
For location, my first thought was my own backyard. It would certainly be convenient. On the other hand, I imagined a rainy day sending everyone into the house, and dozens of people traipsing through to use the bathroom. Then I thought about my local community center. It had a large main room with lots of folding tables and air conditioning (it’d be summertime). To my delight, the director was up for it. We’d have the swap from 10 to 2, and the only catch was that we would have to have the room back to normal in time for a potluck at 5.
Now to find a charity to take the toys. I Googled “toy donation Boston,” and hit several dead-ends. A few organizations wouldn’t pick up the toys. Some wouldn’t take any toys that required batteries. Some refused violent or war toys. Some, no stuffed animals. I was pretty amazed that charities were being so picky. Finally, I came upon Cradles to Crayons. They would rent a van just for the occasion, and would pick everything up. They weren’t keen on the violent toys, but would take everything else. I had to have a leap of faith here, because if they didn’t show up, or didn’t have room for everything in their vehicle, once the event was over, I would be making many trips back and forth to the community center to amass a mountain of leftover toys in my backyard—which I would then have to sort out for the picky charities!
Next, I had to call in reinforcements. Being a bit of a control freak (well, what would you expect from a professional organizer?), I prefer to be very self-sufficient, but I knew that even I had my limits. My boyfriend would help because he’s my boyfriend. My daughter, age 8, would help—though I had doubts about how helpful her help would be. I decided to offer a half-hour of free organizing time to my clients for every hour of help they gave me at the swap. So I had two helpers, and they were fabulous.
Here’s what I did to get the word out: I posted on several different LiveJournal communities, as well as both my own LJs. (The professional one is “findyourfloor.”) I wrote a press release and sent it to local newspapers. I emailed everyone I knew in the area who had children. I printed flyers, put them up on some bulletin boards, and gave some to my neighbors. My local community center posted a notice on their website and in their newsletter. I looked around a bit in the coming weeks, but didn’t see any notices in any of the newspapers I contacted. A local preschool displayed a sign that a parent must have dropped off, but that was it. I was pretty disappointed by the lack of publicity, but I guess others didn’t find the prospect of a toy swap as exciting as I did.
As is my wont, and because this was uncharted territory, I stayed up nights contemplating worst case scenarios:
1. Someone told me that another local organization had held a toy swap which consisted of a few adults coming in with large garbage bags, shoving all the donated toys on the tables into the bags, and then leaving. Sure, the toys would be gone, but perhaps these folks would just take what they wanted and trash the rest—or maybe they were out to make some money from the stuff. It would also mean that the swap would be over pretty quickly, and the kids couldn’t do any of the “shopping.”
2. In another scenario, what if two kids decided they wanted the same toy and wound up fighting over it? Or older kids were taking toys away from younger kids?
3. What if a kid claimed a toy for himself and then another kid thought that toy was still up for grabs?
4. What if parents were to drop off their kids to try to use the toy swap as a kind of babysitting?
5. What if all the kids decided to play with the toys right there, creating large amounts of chaos and making it hard for people to actually do the swapping?
6. What if people brought home more toys than they donated, thereby increasing their household clutter?
So I made two signs to try to forestall some of these events:
HOW TO SWAP:
1. Drop off your toys on the sorting table in the front of the room.
2. Take a black garbage bag and tag for each kid.
3. Write the kid’s name on the tag and attach it to the bag.
4. Put the bag on or under the “claimed toys” table.
5. Kid or parent may place ONE toy at a time into the bag.
RULES:
• Be polite! No grabbing.
• People wearing silly hats are in charge: go to them with questions.
• This is not a childcare event: All kids must be supervised.
• This is not a play event: make sure the toy works; then place it in your bag if you want it.
• If more than one kid wants the same toy:
•See if you have a toy in your claimed bag you could trade for it.
•Try being kind and letting the other kid have it.
•If all else fails, see a grownup in a silly hat for help.
Most of these rules wound up being unnecessary, but more on that below.
“Day Before” Preparation: I realized somewhat late that it would be way too much going on at once if we were accepting donations at the same time as people were “shopping.” So I modified what signs and notices I could to ask people to drop off donations the evening before, having secured permission from the community center. This was really helpful. Even though we didn’t have a ton of advance donations, we were able to set up the tables and signs so we could hit the ground running in the morning. I also put a flyer in each bag with information about my organizing business.
The "Stuff" signs we made included:
• Cars & Trucks & Things That Go
• Stuffed Animals
• Dolls & Dollhouses/Furniture
• Building Toys
• Noisemaking Toys
• Books
• Games
• Outdoor Toys
• Sports Equipment
• Arts and Crafts
• Baby Toys
• Music, Videos, Computer Games
There was some last-minute sign making as new categories emerged. The biggest source of anxiety was having no idea how many people were going to show up. The community center had encouraged registration, but they got almost no response.
So, how did the swap go? The goal of encouraging people to declutter was definitely met. I was somewhat disappointed with the turnout, however. I didn’t count the number of attendees, but it never really got busy enough to be challenging. I probably didn’t need half my helpers. The biggest surprise: Most people only came to drop off toys. Sometimes they would allow each kid to choose one new toy to bring home. Everyone was very polite; there were no fights or grabbing. When the swap was over, we all bagged up the remaining toys for Cradles to Crayons to take away, set the space up the way it was before, and that was that. I did not get a single new organizing client from this project, so as a marketing tool it was a complete failure. But I was happy to provide a service to the community, and my own daughter got a few new toys for herself.
Thanks, Jennifer, You did a ton of work for your swap--I see why you're a professional! I suspect that there's a more low-key way to do this for us moms and dads who aren't quite as organized. I might just pick a day, gather a few friends and try this in my basement.
Has anyone out there done a toy swap before? Any advice?