Saturday, August 20, 2011

I'm a Toy Dropper!

I've joined The Toy Society and today I dropped my first toy. The Toy Society is a group of toy makers who leave their hand-made toys in public place for strangers to find and keep. A letter containing an explanation of The Toy Society and contact information for the group is included with the toys so strangers finding the toys can send their find stories if they want and the stories will be added to The Toy Society's blog.

A picture of the yarn doll for my first drop on a shelf in my bedroom. I wrapped a piece of cardboard with jungle-themed paper and taped the The Toy Society letter on one side and on the other side I taped a tag stating "Take Me Home, I'm Yours". When I bagged the gift-wrapped cardboard and the toy, the toy would sit right under the tag.

Dropped: Super China Buffet in Waterville, Maine

My mom and I wanted to go to Waterville for lunch at Super China Buffet (a favorite restaurant of ours. Going to Waterville is a rare treat because it's an hour drive from home) and watch Fright Night at the cinema theater a little down the road from it. I thought the Super China Buffet was a great place for my first toy drop. When we came into the restaurant, I decided right away to leave it at the vending machines when it was time to leave. After a wonderful lunch, we stopped at the vending machines to leave the toy and I took pictures of it with my digital camera. We left the restaurant and as we headed toward our car, we saw a little boy with his parents going to the restaurant's doors. In the car, we drove by the doors and the toy was still sitting among the vending machines and the family was gone. I wonder who collected it and if they'll send a message that they found it!

Last Wednesday night, I looked through all the toy drops done in the USA recorded on The Toy Society blog for Maine toy drops, which took several hours (The drops are not divided into state labeled categories. The USA has 990 toy drops today and was about a handful less on Wednesday night) The records go back to November 2008. When I finished looking through the records, I had five Maine toy drops. California and Washington are the states with the most drops (I didn't count what they had but I saw their names for drop locations far more than other states' names). In May two years ago, someone else had made their first toy drop in Waterville and the drop site was a playground.

I'll be keeping records of Maine toy drops on my blog for my interest (and the interest of anyone else who cares).

Drop #323 left at the North Street playground in Waterville on May 21, 2009
Reply from finder: No

2009 Christmas Drop #177 left at a McDonald's in Winslow on December 24, 2009

Drop #1258 left at Buker Community Center playground in Augusta on July 3, 2010
Reply from finder: No

Drop #1362 left at the Common playground in Gardiner on August 30, 2010
Reply from finder: Yes (They replied in the comments section of the toy's drop entry)

Drop #1363 left at the Lou Buker Community Center playground in Augusta on August 30, 2010
Reply from finder: No

Wow! Till I made my drop, Maine hadn't seen a toy drop for a year! I can't believe there wasn't a toy drop in Maine for The Toy Society's Christmas Drop 2010 (on the last weekend before Christmas, toy makers drop their toys and hope to break the previous year's record of drops made on the last weekend before Christmas)


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