Auxiliarists are all about water. Right?
Not necessarily. We all have another side and no, I do not mean the “Dark Side.”
Take five members of Division 11 D7 for example. They like to play with wood. Parks Honeywell, Don Hoge, and Tom Loughlin, all of Flotilla 11-10, and Edna and Ernie Schwabe of Flotilla 11-7 are all members of a group called “The ToyMakers.”
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| Ernie Schwabe in background and Parks Honeywell working on toys. |
“The ToyMakers” started in 1982 with one man and through the years has grown to 23 men and women. During that period of time, “The ToyMakers” have made and given away over 230,000 toys to children in emotional or physical distress. As a nurse told them one time, the toy doesn’t bring a smile just to the child. It also brings smile to the family and medical staff caring for the child. That is an awful lot of smiles that this group has made.
The toys are all wood, no metal, and brightly painted in happy colors. “The ToyMakers” deliver them every three months (about 1,900 toys each time) to several Tampa Bay, Florida agencies. Those agencies include the Shriner’s Hospital, All Children’s Hospital and its local clinics, a local Domestic Violence shelter, St. Josephs Hospital (pediatric cancer clinic), Pasco County EMS as well as local fire and police departments.
They are also delivered to Ronald McDonald Houses in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, and Gainesville. Toys have also been sent to Afghanistan and Iraq, to the Gulf Coast after Katrina, to the Caribbean, to Mexico, to orphanages in South Africa, and to local counties after last year’s hurricanes.
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| Tom Loughlin at a drill press. |
The group has received many stories about how one of their simple toys made a difference in a family’s life.
One story began a year or so ago when a small boy was found at the bottom of a pool in Pasco County, Florida. He was resuscitated and, in a coma. He was airlifted to All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg. The doctor was in the room with the family. He had already told them the little boy might never come out of the coma, and if he did, they didn’t know if he could ever talk, or walk, or do anything. Anyway, they stood there, watching him. His eyes opened (that answered the coma question), saw one of the toys and reached out for it. That answered a couple of other medical questions, then he ran it back and forth over his stomach saying “Zoom, Zoom, Zoom.” The doctor said, “tens of thousands of dollars in testing could not have done what that toy did.”
The “ToyMakers” are actively promoting a program to get similar groups started across the United States. As of September 15, 2008, they have sent out informational “How to do it” packages to six groups in Canada and 115 groups in the United States. “The ToyMakers” invite everyone to visit their web-site at www.thetoymakers.org and pass the word.
All of you fellow Auxiliarists put smiles on the faces of relieved boaters all the time. “The ToyMakers” just do the smile thing a little differently.
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| Ernie Schwabeleft and Parks Honeywell work on toys. |
~IJLA