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This 26-year Army veteran and his spouse have spent many of the final decade making toys in a woodshop behind their home.
It’s a labor of affection that began as a passion.
“After retirement, I got bored and needed something to do,” 72-year-old Mike Sullivan advised CNN.
The couple joined a woodworking membership and one among their tasks was to construct toys for teenagers.
“Christmas time, we had a chance to see the kids get the toys and see how much joy it was,” stated Sullivan.
They had been hooked.
Seven years and 1000’s of toys later
What began as a passion seven years in the past was a mission to give away their handmade toys to dad and mom and their youngsters.
Mike and Judy Sullivan spend almost on daily basis within the store.
“We’re both in good health and are able to be out here six to seven days a week for eight to 10 hours,” Sullivan stated.
“It’s so much fun, it feels like home here in the shop working things out.”
And it is one thing the couple, who simply celebrated their 50th wedding ceremony anniversary, get pleasure from doing collectively.
Mike buys the lumber, the drill bits and saws and makes the patterns — chopping and sanding away.
Judy is high quality management and decorator.
“I run my hands over all the toys and feel for something that’s not supposed to be there — a loose wheel or splinter,” stated Judy. She additionally spray paints and decorates.
“The designs sort of come up in my head when I see the toys,” the 71-year-old stated.
On a mission to consolation youngsters in want
This 12 months, their toys had been particularly wanted with so many dad and mom out of labor due to the impression of the coronavirus pandemic on the financial system.
The Sullivans give away lots of the toys exterior their residence within the Coachella Valley.
They are further cautious scheduling people at intervals to come take a look at the toys.
“We try to enforce safe distancing and masking,” stated Mike.
This week, they’re delivering a whole lot of toys to a kindergarten class, the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission and a church meals pantry. They’ve mailed toys as far away as Indiana and Texas. Not solely are the toys free, however the couple pays for the delivery though, they admit, that is getting powerful.
“As long as I can afford it, I can send them where I can,” he stated.
Rescue mission improvement director Scott Wolf says the couple has donated their handmade toys for a few years at Christmastime, and the youngsters love them.
“We are going to give them to the kids in our family shelter to play with in their toy room and their playrooms.”
The Sullivans’ toys will even be distributed to youngsters throughout a drive-thru giveaway with social distancing, “making sure everyone is safe and happy and healthy.”
Couple’s 15 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren are toy testers
“All my kids and grandkids and great-grandkids get my toys,” stated Mike Sullivan. And typically they bounce the gun.
The couple makes trains, automobiles, vans, pull and push toys (little alligators, elephants), geese you placed on a string and pull alongside behind you.
They additionally make instructional toys: alphabet puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, stackers with completely different dimension blocks on a pole.
“They’re constantly coming by the shop and toys just disappear with the kids.”
Judy Sullivan stated they watch them play with the toys and see what they like and do not like about them. “If they drop a toy on the floor and break the head of a duck, we better reinforce that.”
While wooden could appear old school, Sullivan’s daughter, Sierra, says her 2-year-old son would not assume so.
“He’s got all sorts of toys and his favorite thing he plays with is the train my dad made him and the stacker he carries around with him everywhere.”
Vietnam vet will get pleasure many occasions over
Mike says whereas he is filled with shrapnel from his service, that does not sluggish him down within the toy manufacturing unit.
“You have to adapt and overcome.” He refuses to cost for his toys. Maybe it is as a result of he is aware of what it is like not to have a lot cash.
“My dad was a miner, we were considerably poor,” stated the retired Army first sergeant, who grew up in Montana.
His older brothers had been each carpenters and made toys for him when he was a baby.
“Most of the things I got were handmade toys. They were wonderful toys, I know how much I enjoyed them and just hope that kids that get them now still do.”
His dad and brothers have lengthy since handed away. “I’m the last of the family,” stated Mike, who fought within the Vietnam War and Desert Storm.
But these recollections persist with him and he inherited their love of wooden. “We do it for those who are less fortunate than we are now.”
Their daughter says her dad and mom spent $19,000 out of pocket final 12 months on provides (she does their taxes). The woodworking membership the couple belongs to usually contributes one other $3,000. But due to pressures from the pandemic, the membership simply cannot chip in this 12 months.
“We don’t go out a lot or spend a lot on things that are frivolous,” stated Sullivan.
Mike hopes anybody who needs a Christmas current subsequent 12 months will attain out to him, and he’ll do his finest to get it to them, wherever they’re.
He needs to purchase a laser printer in order that he could make double the toys they did this 12 months.
“We’re a couple of old grandmas and grandpas doing what we do best,” stated Judy. “That’s all there is to it.”
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