NEW BERLIN — With a little cutting and sanding, a group of volunteers in New Berlin is making a difference in their community the best way they know how - crafting wooden toys.
“Do nice things for your community with no expectation of recognition or reward and you make the world just a little better place," Brian McDonough said.
He is the chairman of the toy committee of the Wisconsin Woodworker's Guild. On the first and second Saturday of every month, volunteer craftsmen gather in the basement of Woodcraft of Milwaukee in New Berlin to make toys for children, and families living in women's shelters across southeastern Wisconsin. Those toys include wooden trains, race cars, trucks, planes, cribs, doll beds, and more.
“While we can’t fix everything in that situation, we can provide a little ray of joy in their life," McDonough said.
For more than 40 years, the Woodworkers Guild has been making these toys and donating them to shelters. Recently, the guild has made more than 1,000 toys a year. Some of the shelters the guild works with are Advocates of Ozaukee, Friends of the Abused, Women's Resource Center, The Women's Center Sister House, and Hope Center.
“Well, the need is there. And typically when a family goes to a shelter they’re going in with nothing," Jeff Grzeca, who is the chairman of the shop committee for the guild, said.
Watch the video to see how the Woodworker's Guild makes its toys.
Women, moms, and their families often move into a shelter suddenly. There are many other issues to worry about beyond toys.
“The money that there is for toys when someone is leaving an abusive relationship simply isn’t there. That money has to go towards different bills," Kate Cothell, the fundraising and development manager at the Kenosha Shelter Women and Children's Horizons, said.
The Kenosha shelter receives more than a hundred toys every year. Those toys don't just make the kids happier. Moms feel better after being able to gift their kids with a brand-new handmade toy.
“People who are in domestic or sexual violent situations often have really poor self-esteem, and so the ability to be able to gift their children something as beautiful as the toys we get is really something special and makes the mom feel really good," Cothell said.
Wooden toys might seem like an antiquated gift in the days of smartphones and all the options one could find at Target or Walmart. But Cothell said kids and families love what the Woodworker's Guild makes.
"We don't get toys like this and, you know, what you get are the regular store bought toys. So when (families and children) get something that's unique and different it is really special."
It’s all about using the skills we have to make a difference. For the Woodworkers Guild, it’s making toys with their hands.
That's why you can expect to find about a dozen volunteers like Brian McDonough and Jeff Grzeca a few Saturday's every month doing their part to make their community a better place.
“Every toy that we put into a box that gets distributed later in the year is a toy that’s going to be in the hands of a child that’s probably not having a real great time in life at the moment and hopefully gets a little smile out of it," McDonough said.
You can get involved with the Wisconsin Woodworker's Guild and aid their mission by visiting its website.
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