Renting toys! Think of all the advantages: no toys to clutter your home, once your kids are done playing with certain toys, you can take them back and choose new ones. We had the pleasure of meeting Elizabeth, the founder of Toylend USA - a toy renting company, the first in the Twin Cities - and she was very nice to take the time and present her business to our readers.
My
name is Elizabeth Wilcox. I came to the Twin Cities from China more than 12
years ago and have stayed here ever since! I went to the University of
Minnesota and spent a decade there before I got my doctorate in Evaluation
Studies from the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and
Development. During those 10 years, I took a 3 year sabbatical from study and
worked as a founding first grade Chinese immersion teacher in Minnetonka Public
Schools. I have been teaching for my entire professional life. I joke that my
career is “going down” because I started teaching college students, then middle
school and high school students, and later elementary students. Now I am
running this toys and baby gear rental business for little kids from birth to
five years old! I love to interact with my students. I love to communicate and
stay connected with their parents. I love my career. I will always, first and
foremost, be a teacher, or “Laoshi” as it is called in Chinese.
I
started this toys and baby gear rental service while raising my own daughter.
She is now 2 years old. When I was a new mom, I kept buying brand-new toys and
baby gear for her. I soon learned how quickly she outgrew her toys. She always
needed something new to keep her interested. As she has grown I have found that
she needs toys and gear that are age and developmentally appropriate: from
colors and sounds, to singing and moving, to riding and building, and so on. I
didn’t think that it made sense for me to keep buying her new toys and gear when
she would outgrow them so quickly. I thought about how many items I had bought
that were no longer being used and could be shared. I realized many families
have been down on the same path. I thought “why don’t we rent from each other?”
That is how the Toylend idea came to me. At Toylend USA, we want to use the
toys and baby gear that are not currently being used and could be shared among
families, so that young children can access a variety of toys and baby gear at
a fraction of the cost.
To
use Toylend’s rental service, there are six simple steps: (1) Reserve your toys
and baby gear online or contact us via email or phone, (2) we send you a
confirmation via email with delivery date and time, (3) we deliver the toys and
baby gear to your home, (4) enjoy the toys and baby gear for the rental period
you choose, (5) close to the end of the rental period, we will send you a
pick-up reminder to arrange pick-up date and time, and (6) toys and baby gear
will be picked up from your home at the scheduled time. The rental periods
start on the 1st and the 15th of each month. The rental period is usually one
month, except for travel items, which are rented on case-by-case basis. If you
have any question on how the rental works, you are welcome to check out the
detailed information here .
You
don’t need a membership to reserve toys and baby gear at Toylend. But members
of Toylend enjoy additional benefits (e.g., free delivery and pick up, 50% off
of the same toy or baby gear for subsequent months, the ability to rent or sell
through us, and discounted rates for classes, etc.). There are two kinds of
memberships: Toylender Club Membership and Toylender Club Rewards Membership.
The Toylender Club Rewards members enjoy $10.00 cash back for every $100.00
spent on toys and baby gear rental, and one free birthday party rental of up to
5 toys. To find more information on the memberships, please visit our website .
At
the end of 2014, Toylend set up a private playhouse, called Playlend. Playlend
is a totally private playhouse. That is to say, if you reserve it, it will be
yours, with a few of your friends too, to use for the time period you reserve. Playlend
is a converted two-bedroom-townhome, and has a gross motor room, two learning
rooms, a reading nook, a full kitchen, and two bathrooms. Recently we have also
been hosting Toylend’s monthly rental parties at Playlend. The Toylend monthly
rental party is usually on the last Saturday of each month.
We have
also recently added a “Toyscription” option to our services. Toyscription is a
monthly toy subscription service. For $25.00 each month, your child will
receive 2-4 new rental toys each month, which have retail value up to $250.00.
Toyscription subscribers enjoy free delivery and pick up. Upon signing up, you
will be asked to provide your child’s birthday. Your child will receive
developmentally appropriate, high quality toys that encourage creativity and
physical activity. For those who have 2 or more children under 5 who need
different toys, we will work out an individual package for them.
Finally, Toylend shares practical advice and
research-backed tips on parenting, and offers fun classes taught by parents
with unique talents for other parents and young children. At Toylend, we
believe that every parent has unique talents to share, from story-telling to foreign
languages, from couponing to teaching yoga. In addition, Toylend is rolling out
educational classes for preschoolers. We have partnered with Dr. Melheim,
founder of RICH Learning to develop and pilot a
series of RICH Learning classes for preschoolers with music, dance, stories,
and arts. RICH Learning is brain-based learning on arts-based platforms. RICH
stands for Recognize, Identify, Comprehend, and Harness. RICH learning studies
the psychology, sociology, and neurology of early learning and applies music,
dance, play, and art at the core of all of its methods, models and materials.
Being an educator for over 15 years, I couldn’t be more excited about this
highly engaging curriculum for our young learners!
I hope more and more families will get to know the
Toylend ideas. I hope more and more families will join Toylend to rent toys and
baby gear to and from each other, to enjoy active play, and to learn. Rent.
Play. Learn.
I
want to thank Non-Toy Gifts for giving me the opportunity to write this guest
post. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at toylendusa@gmail.com. You can also like us on Facebook and follow us on
Twitter to keep updated with our news and promotions.
Dr.
Elizabeth Wilcox
Founder
and Owner
Toylend
USA LLC
Labels: toys