How to Organize a Toy Swap

Parents of young children know all too well how quickly their children's toys accumulate. Parents also know how soon the excitement and enjoyment of a new toy tends to disappear. If you are wading through an ocean of toys at your house or are desiring to spark your child's interest with a new toy, you might consider organizing a toy swap. A toy swap gives participants the opportunity to recycle their toys and bring home some toys that will be new to their children without spending a dime.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Create rules for the toy swap. State in the rules that the toys must be in clean and working condition. You may also state a minimum number of toys to bring and that participants will be able to take home as many "new" toys as they bring to recycle.

2. Get the word out. Call or email people you think may be interested in a toy swap to let them know you would like to host one. Be sure to inform these individuals of the rules and ask them to reply if they are interested in participating. Once you see how much interest there is, you can then decide on the location.

3. Set a date, time and location for the toy swap. If the initial response was small, you may be able to host the toy swap at your house. If you had an overwhelming response and need a larger location, you may be able to host a toy swap at your church or some other public location. If hosting the toy swap somewhere other than your house, you may ask participants for small monetary donations for the organization that is letting you use their space.

4. Create a flier announcing the scheduled toy swap. If this is a large toy swap include a toy drop off date, time, and location so you will be able to inspect and organize the toys before the actual event. Also note that participants should bring their own bags and or boxes for gathering toys to the toy swap. Mail, email, and post fliers at your child's school or daycare, and any other places your child may go if you want this to be a large toy swap event.

5. Collect toys and check to be sure they are clean and in working condition. Record the number of toys dropped off by each participant and reward them with one ticket per toy. Organize the toys by age and type. Place in boxes until the day of the toy swap.

6. Swap toys. Participants arrive at the scheduled event with their tickets and bags or boxes. They browse through the assortment of recycled toys and choose as many toys as they have tickets for. Participants check out by redeeming their tickets for the toys.

7. Clean up. Not all toy swap participants may redeem all of their tickets. Donate any leftover toys to local charities.

Tips & Warnings

• If this is going to be a large toy swap, you may want to enlist the help of some family members to help things run smoothly. Also, depending on the size and turn out for your toy swap event, you may want to only allow a specified number of participants in at a time for safety reasons.

• Don't put any toys in a toy swap if they were gifts from family. You never know if the toy will be asked about, or an unknowing child may tell that family member!