ST. LOUIS (AP) - The simple wooden toys range from race cars to airplanes, hummingbirds to cupcakes. For 20 years, members of the St. Louis Woodworkers Guild have provided the toys to hospitalized children.
This week, guild members are celebrating a milestone: 40,000 toys made and donated to children's hospitals.
The toys are more than something to play with. the young patients at Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center, St. Louis Children's Hospital, and Mercy Children's Hospital paint the wooden toys, something that becomes part of their therapy toward recovery.
Eight-year-old Jaycie Martin's eyes lit up when offered the opportunity to paint. Within minutes, she was out of bed at Cardinal Glennon, sitting in front of a table full of paints, ready to transform her butterfly cutout into a work of art.
Without the opportunity to paint, "I'd go crazy," Jaycie said.
The 115-member guild is made up largely of retired men with wood shops in their basements. They craft unpainted toys delivered monthly to the two hospitals.
"It takes more than medicine to heal a child. I've believed that forever," said Alberta Lee, child life manager at Mercy. "They can get lost in these projects, and it gives them some normalcy. For those few moments, they forget they have chemo treatment later that day."
John Patton, 83, and his wife, Helen, collect the toys each month and deliver them to Children's and Cardinal Glennon. Another guild member drops off toys at Mercy.
Guild member Wayne Humphrey has made about 400 toys from the basement of his home in Creve Coeur. Among his new efforts this year are cutouts with the word "MOM" flanked by hearts, something the kids can give their moms on Mother's Day. A similar version will be available for Father's Day in June.
"I started cranking out a few at a time, and got going from there," said Humphrey, 65.
Painting the toys breaks up the monotony for Jaycie, who endures long hospital stays. About every other month, her parents make the 2½-hour drive from Christopher, Illinois, for Jaycie's two-week antibiotic treatments for cystic fibrosis. While admitted, she is confined to her hospital room.
"She goes stir crazy. She needs a way to express herself, and that's how she does it," her mother, Marcy, said of the toy program.
Jaycie painted a bear for an aunt. A giraffe with glittery pink spots, one of her proud creations, will likely go to her dad.
As for the butterfly with the blue wings painted this week, hospital workers have suggested Jaycie hang it from her IV pole until she goes home.