L.A. County Toy Library Program: Something Children Can Play With : World’s Oldest and the Nation’s Biggest Service of Its Type

Every workday, Jane Donelson wedges her way into a comfortably crowded office full of dolls and toys, furniture and boxes of file cards to do the work she has done and loved for 23 years: supervising a program that lends toys to children in Los Angeles County.

This year, about 35,000 toys will be used to make 700,000 loans among 7,900 “card carrying” youngsters in the world’s oldest and the nation’s biggest toy library program.

The program, run by Los Angeles County’s Department of Public Social Services, uses donated toys put in good condition by welfare recipients.

Officially, youngsters from 2 through 12 may borrow toys. But official is not an important word in the toy library program. “Most of our kids are from infant to 10,” Donelson said. “But if they stick to our rules, they can borrow toys at any age.” Rules for borrowing from the program’s 30 lending locations are to be courteous, to return toys on time and in good shape, and to give honest explanations when toys are lost or broken. Up to three toys and any number of books can be borrowed for a week. If a youngster brings back toys on time and in good condition for 20 weeks, he or she can pick and keep a new or near new toy from the “Honor Cabinet.”

“If a child borrows from us for three years, we try to give him or her an extra special toy, like a bicycle,” Donelson said.

For many children, toy library centers double as social clubs.

“All my friends come here, and there’s a lot of toys,” said Stewart Delaney, 11, after descending from a pair of stilts borrowed from the toy library at 514 N. Hoover St. Delaney said he comes to the toy library more to play than to take toys home.

Like most toy libraries in the county system, Hoover Street opens one afternoon a week. On a recent Wednesday, kids played with dolls, board games, musical instruments and sundry other toys in the 15-by-20-foot storefront.

Claudia Huezo, 11, detached herself from the hubbub long enough to say she’d been in the neighborhood only a month, and came to the library mostly to make new friends. “There’s a lot of neat toys and there are a lot of neat people around here,” she said.

One of those neat people is Donna Titley, an accomplished weaver and potter who two years ago opened the Hoover Street toy library after hearing Donelson give a talk. Titley, who donates her time plus $250 monthly rent for the storefront, encourages the social center aspect of her library by celebrating occasional events, like Halloween and her library’s anniversaries. The social nature of the place is further emphasized by a colorful window sign proclaiming “Toy Loan Club.” Floor-to-ceiling shelves decked with toys line the storefront’s walls.

The 38-year-old mother of two said she runs the toy library because it teaches children responsibility, it permits them to play with toys they otherwise would never have, she loves toys herself and “most of all because I love to sit on the carpet and play with the kids.”

She said that when toys get broken, it’s almost always because they are old before she gets them, and somewhat fragile. Kids rarely steal a toy, she said, and when they do another child more often than not brings it back. “The only two times I was ever really ripped off were when parents came in and checked out the best toys I had and never came back,” she said.

Besides Titley’s storefront, toy libraries occupy space in housing projects, schools, parks, public libraries and hospitals. One toy library is in a van, which is taken to a different location daily by a woman who dresses in various costumes to amuse her young clients.

At County/USC Medical Center, recreation therapist Joyce Velasco finds the toy library program “really valuable” for emotionally distressed children in the psychiatric hospital. The program helps children understand and follow directions. It helps teach them how to play, take and share responsibility, Velasco said.

There are about 200 toy library programs in the nation, with about 50 more in the planning stages, said Judy Iacuzzi, executive director of the USA Toy Library Assn. in Glenview, Ill.

The county program got started in the summer of 1934 when a dime-store manager in Southwest Los Angeles caught a bunch of 8- and 9-year-old boys stealing spools of thread to make wheels for toy cars. The manager, whose name has been lost to history, decided toys should be readily available to more children. He took his idea to a citizens’ volunteer group that went on to establish the first toy library at the Manchester Playground on May 6, 1935.

Over the years, there have been as many as 50 toy libraries operating simultaneously in Los Angeles County.

“The program flourished when we had club women with time to donate,” Donelson said. “Now, most women seem to work.” Today, Donelson seeks volunteers through organizations like the PTA.

The program gets a lot for a little. In a cavernous former paint factory at 2200 Humboldt Ave., rooms filled with bins of toys and toy parts provide a focal point for about 16 welfare recipients who sew doll clothes, repair bicycles, refurbish doll houses, fashion usable board games by combining several decimated ones, and generally make usable toys out of junk. They even make some toys from scratch, like the stilts Stewart Delaney used at the Hoover Street toy library.

Composite Funding

The Department of Public Social Services budgets about $82,000 for the program, but only $23,000 is county funding, with $31,000 coming from the state and $28,000 from the federal government. In addition, a volunteer group called the Toy Loan Advisory board runs two annual rummage sales to raise about $1,700 for the toy library program. Donelson constantly seeks items for those sales. “We’ll take toys, clothes, bric-a-brac, appliances--anything,” she said. “If our driver can lift it, he brings it in. And we’ll pick up any place in L.A. County.”

The number to call to make donations is (213) 226-6242.

TOY LIBRARY LOCATIONS

BELL GARDENS PARK 6662 Loveland, Bell Gardens BELVEDERE PARK 4914 Brooklyn Ave., L.A. CITY TERRACE 1126 Hazzard, L.A. EL SEGUNDO 111 W. Mariposa, El Segundo FELIPE DE NAVE 2820 W. 6th St., L.A. FEDERATED HEADSTART * 21919 Avalon Blvd., Carson GARDENA 812 W. 165th Place, Gardena HIGHLAND PARK 5812 N. Monterey, Highland Pk. HOLIFIELD PARK 847 Carmel Court, Montebello LAWNDALE 4580 W. 168th St., Lawndale LENNOX 10828 Condon, Lennox LOS ANGELES COUNTY/USC MEDICAL CENTER Open to hospital patients only MAR VISTA 11965 Allin St., Culver City MONTEBELLO PARK 115 S. Taylor, Montebello RAMONA GARDENS 2830 Lancaster, L.A. REDONDO PERRY PARK 2130 Rockerfeller, Rdn. Bch. ROWAN AVENUE SCHOOL* 600 S. Rowan Ave., L.A. SALAZAR PARK 3864 Whittier Blvd., L.A. SOUTH CENTRAL 7655 S. Central Ave., L.A. SPARKS SCHOOL * 15151 Temple, La Puente TOY LOAN CLUB 514 N. Hoover, L.A. WAITE SCHOOL * 122110 E. Walnut, Norwalk

BELL GARDENS PARK Mon. & Wed. 2:30 - 5 BELVEDERE PARK Tues. & Thurs. 2 - 4:30 CITY TERRACE Wed. 3 - 5 EL SEGUNDO Tues. Wed. & Sat. 10 - 12 FELIPE DE NAVE Mon. 4 - 5:30 FEDERATED HEADSTART * Tues. 2 - 4:30 GARDENA Thurs. 3 - 5 HIGHLAND PARK Wed. 3 - 5 HOLIFIELD PARK Wed. 2 - 5 LAWNDALE Thurs. 2 - 4 LENNOX Tues. 2 - 4:30 LOS ANGELES COUNTY/USC MEDICAL CENTER MAR VISTA Sat. 10 - 12:30 MONTEBELLO PARK Thurs. 2 - 4:30 RAMONA GARDENS Mon. 2 - 4:30 REDONDO PERRY PARK Wed. 2 - 5 ROWAN AVENUE SCHOOL* Thurs. 2 - 4:30 SALAZAR PARK Sun. 1 - 4 SOUTH CENTRAL Tues. & Thurs 2 - 4:30 SPARKS SCHOOL * Mon. 1:30 - 4:30 TOY LOAN CLUB Wed. 3 - 5 WAITE SCHOOL * Wed. 1:30 - 4:30

PARAMOUNT PARK MOBIL UNIT Services, 8 sites. Call 531-3503 for days and locatiion.

* Closed during the summer