Telling Our Story

For ChildFund International, our toy exhibit – “The Power to Play: from Trash to Treasure” – is more than just a display of creative toys. It embodies the essential qualities of children, qualities that have been the foundation of our work for 70 years.

Beginning Sept. 13 through Dec. 31, the toys and children’s art work will be on display at the Museum of Tolerance (MOT), 9786 W, Pico Blvd, Los Angeles Ca. The Museum will showcase the toy exhibit at a special family Sunday event on Sept. 13, from 1:30-4 p.m. hosted by MOT and ChildFund International.

During the family event, the Museum of Tolerance will hold toy workshops for children and their families to create toys made from recycled materials donated by a local ‘Green” toy company. Children will also have the chance to play dress-up, honoring Hispanic Heritage in the toy display area.

MOT Director, Liebe Geft and ChildFund International President and CEO Anne Lynam Goddard will open the exhibit with the ribbon cutting at 1:30 p.m., followed by a speech by Anne Goddard on ChildFund’s work with deprived, excluded and vulnerable children around the world. 
 
Shauntay Hinton, former Miss USA and sponsored child with ChildFund International will also be a part of the opening event.

“ChildFund International has long recognized play as essential to childhood development, said Goddard. “We are sharing this toy collection as a visible demonstration of how the power to play helps children thrive and become leaders of enduring change in their communities and the world.”

The collection of more than 350 toys, made by children from around the world, shows real imagination and creativity for using locally available materials (often scrap or discarded) to design toys of all shapes and sizes that roll, float, peddle or strum.

Some of the handmade toys are unique to their place of origin. Some tell the story of the social, economic and political conditions in which children find themselves. Others are as universal as the soccer balls and kites that children across three continents have made using exactly the same techniques.

Read more about "The Power to Play" and see videos of children making toys »