Join Your Local Toy Library - Cairns

I'm Elsa and I actually started the toy library in the late 70s. and so I looked it up and thought that would be a really good thing to be a part of. The biggest benefit is being able to come along and borrow exactly the right thing for your child's development at that very moment. What I love about the toy library is that there's a whole range of toys from different sections and that it keeps my daughter's interest in what she's playing with and you can rotate them every few weeks. I was kind of sick of having a lot of clutter and toys in the house so I just wanted to keep things minimal and be able to borrow things and return them. You're saving money, you're not buying a lot of stuff. It's really nice for the children to be able to try things before they borrow them. So some people will borrow something and then think it is so good they must have their own but they've had the opportunity to try it and they know that it works for them. The things that my daughter loves the most was probably the scooters were her first like big thing that she got obsessed with. So when my little one comes to the toy library and is choosing toys he is choosing things that I wouldn't necessarily go out and buy for him. People will borrow something and then think it is so good they must have their own. Yes my husband is still fixing toys. For 10 years he's been fixing toys. One of the things I love about it is you know you're looking after the environment. Well that's why I like it too is because she can play with all the plastic toys and bring them back but you're not going into that consumerism thing of keeping buying plastic. And even if our toys become tired we recycle our toys. We take them to Toys for Joy and we get them recycled. Yeah it's lovely to come into the toy library. You can sort of see kids around the same age and just being at the toy library you have the same interest as well. People meet one another here and realise that they know one another from somewhere else or they tell them about something else that's going on and then they become friends. We take everything and then if it's not suitable for us we give it to a play group or to a family that needs that particular thing. So nothing's wasted. So the toy library is all run by volunteers. It's a really awesome community project and the process is it's super simple to join. You just contact someone through Facebook, they'll send you an application form, you work out what membership you want. So you can get a cheaper membership if you volunteer and help out a couple of times a year or you can pay more if you don't have the time to and it's so super cheap. My favourite toys are the pretend play toys and my favourite of the pretend play toys is the coffee set. So it's got a little coffee maker with all the little bits and it's my favourite thing.