Elisabeth Champion
The Limestone Coast Toy Library is getting ready to celebrate, as it marks its first birthday.
Starting from humble beginnings, the library has more than tripled its initial membership and doubled its collection.
The first year was not without its hurdles, but president Karen Sebek said overall, things were going well.
“The last year has been full on,” she said.
“We had our grand opening, and we were opening until December, and then we got told that Rolland Street was being sold, so we had to brush around and look for a new place.
Luckily, we found a place and so we moved fairly quickly.”
“We’ve more than tripled our membership and more than doubled our toy collection and we’ve got a whole lot more committee members.”
The library came about after the closure of the toy library which used to operate out of the Naracoorte Library.
“I called the book library to find out if they had a toy library because I had recently retired and thought I could volunteer, but they said it was shut down,’ she said.
“Then I did a bit of research and talked to Toy Libraries Australia and decided to open the toy library.”
Although there is already an extensive collection, the library is always keen for donations of new or good condition used toys.
“If people have good quality toys, we’re always looking for new toys,’ she said
“We just don’t take soft toys or toys with but button batteries.”
The library has a broad range of toys, catering from birth all the way to 18, although Ms Sebek said some toys had proved popular with their young clientele.
“The soft play foam playsets are very popular, and the Cozy coupe cars, they’re almost always out.
“Those are the most popular, but just about everything goes through the door – a lot of the dolls and oll carriages are popular too.”
While the collection is always growing, Ms Sebek said more toys for the eight to 12 year old category would be appreciated.
“We also won a grant from One Forty One for diversity and inclusion, so that will bring in dolls and games and toys from different cultures, and toys that would suit a child who needs additional help,” she said.
Ms Sebek said there were many reasons to consider joining the Toy Library.
“It saves on costs of toys, storage problems and it’s sustainable, that’s really huge,” she said.
“Now, toys and things aren’t ending up in landfill, so they’re being repurposed, reloved.
“People can come in and they have the toys for up to four weeks, but if the child gets bored of them in two weeks, they can come back and get new ones so they haven’t bought a $100 toy, and then find out that after two weeks, they’re not interested in it anymore.
“Our toys are a combination of donated preloved toys, toys that we’ve bought off marketplace, or one of the buy, swap, sell pages, or brand new toys that we’ve bought through our grants.”
You can check out the library and its extensive collection at their birthday celebrations on September 21, at it’s Sandstone Ave premises from 10am to 12pm.
There will be games, party bags, balloons and a colouring competition.
It is free and everyone is welcome.
