Plush Animals Donated to Emergency Services
Story and photos by Flora M. Gibson Reprinted from Columbia Gorge News
The 4 storage units were so full of doll parts, bear kits, vintage books, craft materials, and keepsakes that volunteer organizer Kathy Cantrell’s crew had to open them carefully, concerned something might flop out.
Part of Billie Jo Willcox’s collection was distributed in early December to the children of Dufur, while area EMS services have taken home plush animal toys to hand to traumatized children on their calls.
The Elves’ House, a “unique free shopping experience for children pre-K through 8th grade,” opened in Dufur School December 7 through 8. If enough collectibles and new toys, games, books, and other items remained, it would reopen the following weekend, too.
The event was aimed at around 300 children from the Dufur area, but any children from Wasco County were eligible to select a gift for each member of their family at no charge, get them gift-wrapped, visit a thank-you card station, and carry their loot home.
Willcox, who lived and taught near The Dalles since the 1970s, recently moved to Kansas to be near her family. In mid-October, she downsized her 50-year accumulation and offered Cantrell’s 6 volunteers the contents of 4 storage units in return for cleaning them.
“She was a fabulous, creative soul. She was a dollmaker, a bear-maker,” Cantrell said.
Each unit was a “time capsule,” brimming with materials for doll-making, bear-making, crafting, sewing, teaching, and old children’s books.
The materials were gathered for adult classes, decades of work with Boy Scouts, a young women’s church group, and activities with school-aged children. 1 handmade accordion-folded book, designed to teach children drawing, stretched for 40 feet when opened out, Cantrell’s partner, Jim, recalled. Another, about birds, stretched 15 feet. Many books were in mint condition.
The storage units were about saving “teaching materials, being resourceful, reusing, not being of the throwaway generation,” Cantrell said. Much of the material is suited for younger readers and makers.
So far they’ve donated more than a ton of items to St. Vincent de Paul. Oregon Veterans Home and a couple of The Dalles-area retirement homes got lots of craft supplies. Vintage toys and games went to 4-H, Fort Dalles Riders, and the First Christian Church women’s group, who in turn filled their Christmas Shoe Box Project with Beanie Babies for kids around the world.
Enough soft, huggable animals surfaced to supply Klickitat County Ambulance Agency and, Cantrell thinks, most or all of Wasco County-area emergency agencies, including Dufur Volunteer Fire and Ambulance. Ambulances carry such toys to hand to children during emergency response, ideally so they have something secure and reassuring to hold onto.
Some things—family photos, business info, college degrees, deeds, titles, and an inherited set of Depression-era glassware—will return to the owner, Willcox, and her family. The rest were divided among local thrift stores, other charities, or local crafters and church groups. About 28 boxes of books, absent an accepting library, went to Cantrell’s neighbors. The rest was cleaned and sorted and organized by age class for the “Elves’ House.”
The volunteers had to haul multiple heaps of vintage around in the Cantrells’ stock trailer, bringing lanterns to work through chilly evenings as they sorted items into a newly rented storage unit of their own until those 300 of Dufur’s children came to take it off their hands.
“It was a lot, and we were really stretched emotionally,” Cantrell said.
She also formed new friendships and hopes their work can help lower-income families enjoy the holidays.
“You guys are the elves,” Cantrell told her group of 10 or so helpers after a morning’s busy sorting out and boxing up at Ramsey Park Grange, where bags and boxes filled the kitchen.
“Service,” said Jim, when asked to identify the best part of his month among the doll supplies. “Making somebody happy.”