First let me start with, I have alot more respect for Santa Claus than I ever had before. Handing out hundreds of toys was not an easy task and I couldn't imagine covering the whole world :!: With that said, I would like to tell you about our day giving out toys :!: We went out...WAY OUT...of Cancun, yesterday near Chiquila. Jorge, our best buddy here in Cancun, is Mayan and from Tikul . We told him he was Santa Claus for the day. He took us to some of the pueblos 2 hours away from Cancun. We saw some pretty poor children :!: Everyone was very happy with their toys, although when we were swarmed by over 40 or 45 kids, it was time to go :!: We would go on to the next little pueblo and give out toys. We really tried to target small groups of children so we could avoid the swarms and we even asked Jorge how everyone in a village finds something out within minutes and no one has a telephone :!: Jorge told us to listen to what the children were saying. They weren't saying "jugetes", spanish for toys. They were talking in Maya..."basha", toys! One little kid would go running and within minutes 40 kids would be around our truck saying in Maya, "give me a toy", pulling on my shirt :-o . We were able to get a bunch out but then had to go because we couldn't give them out fast enough. We had a great time. One little boy was standing in front of his open-air shack, playing in the dirt with his brother.You could see his mom resting on a hammock inside the cement building. Andy ran over to him with a racing car track for him and a dump truck for his brother. Do I have to tell you about the smiles??? We had 'em, they had 'em', mom's had 'em, dad's had 'em! EVERYONE was loaded with smiles. It was a very warm feeling! My wonderful computer person, Life_N_Cancun is going to be posting pictures of all the smiles we received on our journey, at our website www.giveatoygetasmile.org. We have another 5 or 6 boxes to go. I am not handing out school supplies yet. I am going to give them out in August. We are going to give out school supplies to the government schools so that they can give it to the poor children that really have a hard time affording it. Back packs are a great thing to be bringing down and school supplies...pencils, pens, notebooks, binders, pencil cases, anything school related, for the August give-away. There are pictures of one family that I do believe is a special needs case. These are 6 children under the age of 12 that live with their grandma, that looks about 70-something. For Three Kings Day, I am going to take all the clothing, that is age appropriate and some more toys and some little bath soaps and personal things for grandma. This is the poster family for a family in need! I wasn't even sure they had a refrigerator and food because they did not want me to see their house inside. I could only imagine, since the outside was in such run-down condition. But they were sooo friendly and each one came over to give me a kiss and thank me for their toys. It was beyond really great! Andy and I came away with tears in our eyes. We had never seen this before...and now, we hope to be able to lend them a little support. We hope to give out the other half of the toys by Tuesday and then give this family their box of goodies on the 6th, El Dia de Los Reyes. On behalf of the children, thank you for your love and your interest. We had more smiles than we could have ever imagined. HAPPY NEW YEAR to all from "Give a Toy...Get a Smile" and SMILE :!: Cause you deserve it! Nancy Claus
Bumping this back up. We are in our second year with Give a Toy Get a Smile and with your help we can give a lot more children something to smile about! Give a Toy Get a Smile distributes items to needy kids in and around Cancun, Mexico. Local hospitals, schools in lower income areas, small "poor" villages around Cancun and among some shelters and orphanages as well as other worthy causes that come to our attention. Our founder Nancy also works with DIF (family services) when planning events. Please see the website for more detail and find out how you can help. www.GiveaToyGetaSmile.org
donating used clothes hi i am travelling to cancun next year and will now definately bring toys, but i have at least a suitcase full of nearly new kids clothes that i would like to donate any suggestions
Give A Toy Get A Smile! Hey everyone...Happy to report that all is well in Cancun. We had some wind, some rain, but nothing compared to the wrath of Wilma! Today, my daughter Lindsay, Janet and I decided to put our time to good use (since we were one of the few houses that didn't have electricity all day) and we packed up all the school supplies into all the back packs we have received (please see www.giveatoygetasmile.org). Hopefully, we will be distributing them this week. I'm not sure what our final count on the backpacks is, but I will be counting them tomorrow and posting it on our website. September 1, we will start collecting again for our Christmas collection. We also ask for coloring books and crayons and stuffed animals for our trips to the Hospital. Chaco, the mascot for the Cancun Tigres our local baseball team, helped me to pass out coloring books and crayons and stuffed animals to the children in Hospital General on August 9th. We had a great t ime and got alot of press coverage within Cancun. A specil thanks to Ruben Mancilla for helping us to contact the Tigres and for all his help towards this organization. He has dedicated alot of time translatingour website and helping us to gain new supporters. THANKS RUBEN FOR ALL YOUR HELP! He is also going to contact the new Soccer Team to see if they will help us out as well. How wonderful it would be if they would fly the "Give A Toy Get A Smile" Banner in the Stadiums! THANK YOU TRIP ADVISOR SUPPORTERS for the amazing things you have brought and for all of the wonderful smiles you have created! You are all top-notch! Love you ALL!!! Nancy
Give A Toy...Get A Smile You can help us by just bringing one small toy in your suitcase when you come down to visit Cancun. The smallest toy can make the biggest difference. Won't you help???
Hi Nurse... we're headed back down in about 10 days and were wondering if we can still bring toys to My Place?
Our toy drop-off in the Hotel Zone is now The Hard Rock Cafe in Plaza "forum by the sea". You can read more the at the website. www.GiveaToyGetaSmile.org Thank for thinking of the kids......
