Recycling Toys And Creating Smiles

Here’s how your CSR Funding can not only help keep toys away from landfills but also enrich the lives of 1,00,000 children across India with physical skills, motor and cognitive abilities, language skills, social skills and SMILES!

This cause is featured on Fund My Project as part of CSRlive.in‘s collaboration with BitGiving.com

Project by: The Toy Bank

Location: New Delhi

Funding Required: INR 8.88 lacs/year

Most children living below the poverty line are deprived of the basic necessities of childhood. The Toy Bank is changing that! Here's what they have to say about their cause and how your funds can help:

Of the 70.11% of nuclear families in India, most of them have a surplus of toys. The Toy Bank strives to bridge this gap! We believe in “Recycling Toys-Recycling Smiles”!

We, at The Toy Bank believe that there is more to a toy than just entertainment! Toys promote development of physical skills, motor and cognitive abilities, language skills and social skills.  So far, we have impacted 5,00,000 children, with an annual reach of 50,000 Children!

So how do we achieve it?

• We collect used/unused toys via School Collection Drives, Corporate Collection Drives and through generous donations by individual volunteers and Toy Manufacturers.
• They are then recycled and given a makeover to make them reusable.
• Before the toys embark on a journey to spread happiness, they are sorted on the basis of Age, Gender and Intellectual Ability so that children can gain from these.
• Toy distribution is carried out through our end field partners.

Our toy distribution has enabled:

• The setting up of Toy Libraries in 40 schools under Teach for India.
• Helped the Intellectually Differently-Abled children at a school in Chandapura -Bangalore to co-learn and co-create.
• Helped increase Kids’ attendance in Anganwadis of Dewas district.
• Establishment of Basketball Courts for kids with the help of our basketball rings donations in Swatantra Talim Foundation, Lucknow.

The Toy Bank is changing the lives of so many children. Here is what our end-field NGO Partners have to say:

“One of our students, Khushboo, a 12 year old girl, who learnt playing basketball  after we received basketball rings from The Toy Bank. Once she was playing and was about to score but committed a foul and she herself came forward, accepting her fault. After this incident, the requirement of a referee was terminated and this simple act of hers through the game of basketball taught the kids a very important trait of life.” - Swatantra Talim, Lucknow

“When the kids were playing business sent by The Toy Bank, they were carefully analyzing the meager 10,000 Rs paper notes given to them, and were thus learning a very important art of doing cost benefit analysis.” - Chaya Foundation, Delhi

In our initial years, we were reaching out to only 30,000 kids solely in Delhi-NCR, however, over a span of 10 years, we have collected and distributed over 5,00,000 toys with the help of our 22 collection centers in 6 states and are donating them all over India, all with the help and faith of volunteers like YOU!

Our organization does not have any permanent employees apart from Vidyun Goel, Director, The Toy Bank, who had juggled between her corporate career and this NGO for over 10 years and only recently quit her corporate life for concentrating fully on this noble initiative. Our NGO has been running with the help of short-term volunteers. We are currently reaching out to only a fraction of the under-privileged kids. We expect to expand our operations to Banaglore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh etc. for which we need permanent employees who further need funds for minimal subsistence.

Costs incurred by us are:

 Driver:        15,000/month      1,80,000/annum

 Admin:       12,000/month      1,44,000/annum

 Logistics:   32,000/month     3,84,000/annum

 Awareness: 15,000/month      1,80,000/annum

 Total:         74,000/month     8,88,000/annum

We are expected to reach 1,00,000 kids per annum and our current expenses per annum are Rs. 8,88,000 (approx.) Thus, it will cost us ONLY 8.88 Rs. to reach 1 Kid!

What do we plan to do with the funds? 

• We plan to scale up our reach to 1,00,000 kids from the current 50,000 kids/annum which will entail further logistics costs and will need a spending of 3.84 lakhs.
• Establish collection and sorting centers in other metro cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Chandigarh, Pune, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad etc. which will require online and offline marketing and will cost us 1.80 lakhs/annum. We survive with the help of part-time volunteers.
• For the expansion of our organization we need good talent and thus funds for minimal sustenance.

Not being able to raise the said amount will be a set-back for us, however, whatever amount is generated, it will be utilized for the sustenance and expansion of our Interstate and Intrastate Logistics.

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Looking for funding?

If you have a social project that’s high on innovation and impact, but running low on financial fuel, do write in to Nidhi Singh at nidhi@csrlive.in with your proposal, and we’ll feature it on FUND MY PROJECT.