Optimists collect Beanie Babies

for children in need

Paula Macha read about the Central Macomb Optimist Club in The Macomb Daily and about the club’s service project of giving Ty Beanie Babies toys to children in need. Macha had more than 500 Beanies from the toy collection of a deceased relative. She and the club connected because she wanted the toys to go to a good cause.

The toys are swaddled in handmade “blankets” by the Optimists. Then a tag goes on that reads: This magic square was made especially for you. It is made out of hugs. When you are sad or mad or scared or bored, hold this square close to you and it will give you the comfort of a million hugs. It will love you no matter what!
“The club has swaddled and donated more than 3,200 Beanie Babies to children all over Michigan, and as far away as the Dominican Republic,” club member Elaine Lyon said.

“They have been given to such programs as Kids Kicking Cancer where we have let the children fighting cancer, as well as their siblings, pick out their very own Beanie Babies. The Van Elslander Cancer Center Pediatric unit received several bins of Beanie Babies to give to their patients to hug when they have a procedure done.”

The club has also donated to SandCastles and Yatooma’s Kids grief support groups for children.

“The Department of Human Services has asked for our Beanie Babies to put into the bags that the children receive containing pajamas, underwear and toothbrushes, when they are taken out of abusive homes,” she said.

“Visiting Nurses Hospice has requested Beanie Babies to distribute at their summer camps, and the Juvenile Arthritis Foundation Camp benefited from our Beanie Babies program also,” Lyon said.

Foster children get them through the Big Family of Michigan as do children attending Vision Hope’s Champions for Life Kid’s Camp.

“As these children get on the bus to go to camp, they are each given a toy to hug throughout the week,” Lyon said. “Several bins of Beanie Babies were sent over to the Dominican Republic to be distributed to the children there.”

The Optimist club holds “swaddle parties.”

We have this procedure so streamlined that we can swaddle about 500 Beanie Babies in about two hours,” Lyon said. “It is a project that we thought was going to be a one-time donation, but it has lasted several years. We plan on continuing this project as long as there is an interest.”

The club works closely with the Macomb Charitable Foundation, a nonprofit organization for children who are homeless or living in poverty.

“It’s hard to imagine that right here in our community there are children who worry where they will spend the night,” Shelley Penzien said. “Some of these children live in hotels or shelters with their parents, parents who never thought they would have to ask for help to provide their little ones with life’s necessities.”

Penzien said they find children sleeping in vehicles and staying in 24-hour laundries and stores.

The Optimists hold pantry showers for the foundation.

The club took $500 from fundraiser proceeds to contribute to a collective effort to help a family that owed thousands of dollars in house payments. The family’s dad is employed, but a child’s catastrophic medical condition caused extenuating circumstances. The foundation and Catholic relief organizations joined with the Central Macomb club, and with the Shelby Daybreakers Optimist Club, to reach the goal and help out the family.

The Central Macomb Optimist Club recently sponsored a new Mount Clemens Optimist Club that meets at Mount Clemens High School. Call Carolee Schmid at (586) 469-8781 for information about the new club.