#23 - June, 2003
GREAT NEWS FROM JOLLY OLD ENGLAND:
On April 14, 2003, Ian Hearne was approved as
Branch Manager of branch number 22 of The Happy Factory in Woodly, Berkshire,
England. Ian has had many years of experience in the construction business
and says there are a lot of good people there who would like to server little
children. Welcome to The Happy Factory family. With this branch in
England and one in Brazil, that makes the Cedar City Happy Factory World
Headquarters.
BRANCH MANAGERS - OUR UN-SUNG HEROES.
We have
learned over the years that The Happy Factory branch managers are a very special
type of people. They all own and maintain their shops and equipment, find
their own wood supply, and provide a facility where The Happy Factory toys can
be made. All of this is at their own expense; they are out of pocket every
month to make this process work. If you have chance when you are helping,
picking up toys to paint, or any other reason, just thank them for all of their
efforts that make this service for little children so successful. The
Happy Factory has now delivered more than 235,000 toys worldwide.
STEAM SHOVELS:
The latest project for the Cedar
City branch is to provide 50 steam shovels to the Clark County Nevada Board of
Education. These will be used for the little children in their special
needs program. We thank the Las Vegas Yellow Cab Company for their
generous donation that made this project possible.
We had a nice experience
at the Fiddler's Elementary the other day. One of the students took a
steam shovel to school for a project about The Happy Factory. One of the
classmates was little Tony who is autistic and they have difficulty getting him
to use the therapy equipment. When he saw the steam shovel he wanted to
get on it. He did, and he stayed there most of the day. We were
later asked if there was any way Tony could get a steam shovel to take home to
help him with this therapy. In talking to the teacher, it was decided that
The Happy Factory would provide one toy for each pupil for them to paint and
keep for their very own and in addition to a toy; Tony would get his steam
shovel. The children were so excited and a day or two later we received
this big poster that said how beautiful the toys turned out and that Tony gave
every one of them a turn on his steam shovel.
THE NEW HAPPY FACTORY
Things are going well for
our purposed new building. Blackburn & Associates have been awarded
the bid as the general contractor. The appraised value of the building
will be $161,3000. It is a 40' x 80' (3200 sq. ft.) It is a pre-engineered
steel truss building that will be fully insulated, a fire sprinkling system,
rest rooms and the corporate office. It will be fully air-conditioned and
have an outside dust collector system. The parking lot will be black top
and the front of the lot will be landscaped. It will be a first class
facility. There will be an area for our steam shovel production, an area
for toy production and an area that will accommodate 80 or 90 people for various
humanitarian service projects.
There will be a catalog that groups or
individuals can look at to decide what projects they would like. We will
provide the guidelines and the list of materials that they will have to furnish
for the project ( we do not subsidize any project.) This new facility will
be available to Individuals or groups in the evenings by appointment. All
projects will be supervised and the quality will be controlled. This will
be a great facility for all ages to participate in doing service, from
kindergarten through senior citizen.
This will be a Happy Factory Service
Center and a great facility for up lifting the lives of many in our
community.
Our fund raising committee is well organized and very excited
about this new building.
There will be a thermometer on the corner of main
and 200 North that will show the progress of donations. The Jazz Bear will
be promoting The Happy Factory June 12, from 5:30 to 7:00 pm on the lawn south
of the SUU Centrum in conjunction with Utah Summer Games. We will be
participating with fund raising activities July 4th and will have a booth at the
July Jamboree, July 12th at the City Park. There will be a black tie
dinner August 14th and Thurl Bailey will head the program. We will be
participating with the Iron County Fair and other events that may come
available.
DONATION:
One day when I picked up the mail, I
noticed a small envelope that just had a street address and Tooele, UT, for the
return address. I was curious and opened the envelope and there were two
one-dollar bills, a little yellow memo sheet in a paper clip. The memo
said, "This is all I can do, I hope it will help." When my vision came
back, I put it back in the envelope, and I thought, it costs us 40 cents to
make a toy; that's 2 1/2 tows for a dollar. "Two dollars, hope it
will help." I think there are five children somewhere in the world that
think it helped a lot.
We ask you for your help in this great
undertaking. We fell that a donation to The Happy Factory is more like an
investment in the future of little lives.
Please make checks payable to The
Happy Factory, Inc. or The Happy Factory, Inc. facility Fund. Thank
You