Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute Gifted Hundreds of Adaptive Toys
Cummins, a manufacturing company with several Minnesota locations, produced hand-adapted toys for children of different abilities. The company then made a large donation to Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute in Golden Valley.
Early Thursday morning, volunteers loaded vanloads of boxes into the building. Each box contained the handiwork of around 200 volunteers.
“Every year, we tend to bring, you know, over 800 toys. Somewhere between 800 or 1,000 depending on the number of toys,” said Matt Ethen.
Volunteers run an assembly line of boxes to Courage Kenny.
There’s plenty to go around, all courtesy of volunteers from Cummins.
Several who are taking part in the hand-delivery, like Ethen.
“We have a wide variety of volunteers and engineers at Cummins who have lots of different skillsets,” Ethen said. “They can bring their skillsets to what we are doing.”
Toys for All Abilities
All of the boxes were carried up to a room loaded with more boxes. The toys are specially designed for kids with different abilities, like a guitar with a plug-in button.
“You can hit the switch to activate the toy, just as you would up here or with any of these buttons,” Ethen said, gesturing to a number of buttons and strings on the toy guitar.
Ethen holds one of the adaptive toys. The toys are hand-adapted and then repackaged, so kids can open them like they’re new.
Each toy is adapted differently. That way, kids with varying mobility challenges can play and learn. Courage Kenny occupational therapist Matthew White said these options are valuable.
“I want to see people more independent. Have fuller lives. And assistive technology can help that,” White said.
Adaptive toys are typically expensive for families. These toys come at no cost. Some will go directly to patients, others to therapists and others to schools.
“They can activate that toy, and then from there the impact is they start learning cause and effect,” White said. “Which is a great skill to learn growing up. But most importantly, they’ll get to play.”
It’s a limitless impact currently packed away in cardboard boxes.
Cummins volunteers also create some adaptive items for adults, like a stylus for phones and tablets, and a phone holder for wheelchairs.
