The doll’s golden curls are just as they should be. And now her head is back on too.
Good thing someone brought her to the Hospital for Soft Toys in Caracas, Venezuela.
Baby dolls, Barbies, and stuffed animals come to the hospital. One by one, volunteers restore used toys for the holidays. They sew, comb, stuff, and dress the playthings. The toys leave ready for new owners.
The toy “hospital” started with Lilian Gluck, a teacher. She wondered what to do with old toys when her children left the country. Should she throw them out? Let them fall apart? Neither seemed like a good option. She decided to wash, fix, and donate them to kids in the hospital.
Months later, Ms. Gluck opened another kind of hospital in her home—the Hospital for Soft Toys. About 60 volunteers now meet twice each week. They’ve recycled about 70,000 toys over seven years.
Venezuela is a troubled country. Many citizens flee for safer nations. And those who stay behind are usually very poor. People from other countries donate more than toys to the hospital. They give school supplies, diapers, shoes, food, and candy.
This charity work helps the needy children of Venezuela. But working in the toy hospital helps volunteers too. It feels good to make an old toy’s fur soft again or untangle a doll’s hair. Mirna Morales is a 76-year-old teacher. She calls volunteering at the toy hospital “one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.”
Another volunteer, María Poleo, is 84. She mends a giant stuffed animal. She says the work is not complicated, since they all have been “seamstresses and menders at one time or another.”
Volunteers deliver finished toys to hospitals and schools in poor neighborhoods. Some go to homes for older people.
Each toy comes with a message attached. “Hello, I am your new friend,” it says. “I am a doll with experience because I played with another girl. . . . When you grow up give me to another girl who will love me and play with me like you.”
You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor. — Deuteronomy 15:11
