Toy Organizing for the Greater Good
This past year, Lead Organizer Russell Farrar took on an incredibly meaningful toy organizing project. It all began with a phone call from Kadie Black, President and CEO of the Voices for Children Foundation. This organization provides stability, safety, and a feeling of home for children in foster care by ensuring that they have a guardian ad litem, a caring, consistent person to represent them in court. She was looking for help creating a Comfort Closet, where guardians could “shop” for new toys, books, clothes, and personal hygiene items for the children under their care.
Here’s what the space looked like when they first reached out to us. There were lots of shelves and lots of space, but toys were stacked everywhere and aisles were blocked:
The Foundation constantly receives shipments of new toys, so the greatest challenge for Russell was to develop flexible systems that could accommodate their ever-changing inventory and keep the space both functional and attractive. He spent more than 150 hours unboxing and labeling diapers, organizing Legos and school supplies, sorting toys and clothes, and more. Midway through, the original scope expanded to include the creation of a baby room, a swag room, and an overflow room for toys.
“Voices for Children is a very welcoming job and a fun place to be,” he said. “I love going and I feel like a part of the team there.”
During some stages of the project, Russell collaborated with team member, Elaine Pereira. On one work day, he and Elaine spent 5 hours shifting items and putting them in bins to make the Comfort Closet look neat and pretty like a store. Take a look at the amazing results of their efforts below.
For more information about the Comfort Closet and how you can help, visit the Voices for Children Foundation website.
You can use many of the toy organizing strategies that we implemented in the Comfort Closet in a playroom at home, too. Here are some of our top tips:
1. Start with the easy stuff. Grab a garbage bag and a bag for donations. Toss broken toys, puzzles and games with missing pieces, and dried out markers. Recycle completed coloring books. Donate toys your child has outgrown.
2. Make space by creating a rotation system. Select a few toys to store in a large lidded bin in an out-of-the-way area, like the top of a closet or the garage. If your child asks for them, you can always bring them down and put others in the rotation bin instead.
3. If the task seems overwhelming, break it down into shorter sessions. Don’t feel like you must declutter an entire toy collection at once. Try setting a timer for one hour and organizing one bin at a time. Once the hour is up, continue if you can. If not, celebrate what you have accomplished and get on with your day.
These toy organizing tips will help you declutter your kids’ spaces faster and more efficiently, so that you can enjoy the season with less stress. But why stop there? Our Holiday Tidy package offers pre- and post-holiday services to get your entire home organized for the holidays. Contact us to book a session today!