The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Toy library brings fun with less cost, waste
Five days after Christmas, Vail Vincent McClure and his grandmother, Ceola McClure-Lazo, happily shopped bountiful options at the Minneapolis Toy Library.
McClure-Lazo made the trip because she knows her 21-monthold grandson isn’t just having fun. Vail is learning to be a good steward of the earth.
The toy-lending library, launched in 2014 and housed at Richfield Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, evolved out of a collective desire by parents of young children to maximize fun and learning without loading up landfills when kids lose interest in a toy after a week or two.
“We love not buying toys all the time,” said Allison Corrado of Minneapolis. The library volunteer and mother of a 3-year-old daughter was admiring a sushi slicing play set.
Matt Allen agreed. “It’s definitely appealing to just not feel like we had to constantly acquire new toys,” said Allen, 38, of Minneapolis. Allen has been visiting the toy library with his 2-year-old son, Ellar, for a year and a half.
“It’s such a good place for trying out toys, where everyone gets to share these things and you don’t then have to buy every single toy,” he said, noting that the price tag for some toys is $50 or $60 a pop.
The Minneapolis Toy Library was founded by moms Molly Stern and Taryn Tessneer, who were motivated by the idea of toy sharing. They received a small community grant and launched the toy library as a mobile program at free meeting rooms at Hennepin County libraries.
Rebecca Nutter, a mother of three young daughters, eagerly joined them and now runs the program. Nutter has an education background and a keen interest in sustainable toys.
At the first gathering, the moms spread out 55 toys on white buffet tables and “three or four curious families came in.”
Today, the toy library has as many as 500 members at a time, with nearly 4,000 toys available. A carpeted lower-level space is full of age-specific puzzles, board games, blocks, trucks, math and science kits, and much more. Each family can borrow up to five toys and games for as long as a month for an annual fee.
The idea of sharing toys is growing. Nutter knows of a retired couple in South Dakota who offer boxes of toys to check out. In Philadelphia, the Rutabaga Toy Library offers 350 toys for kids up to age 6. Australia, too, “is a big one,” Nutter said, when it comes to toy lending libraries.