Finger Lakes Toy Library moves to new location

Late last month, Finger Lakes Toy Library (FLTL), a nonprofit community toy lending library that opened in 2017, announced that it will be moving to a new location at The Shops at Ithaca Mall by mid-October. The new location offers three times as much space compared to its previous location on Clinton Street in Ithaca, allowing for a larger collection of toys and games and a bigger play area for visiting children.

FLTL received short notice at the end of August that it had to vacate its previous location, where it had been operating for the past four years, within 30 days. Kelly Sauve, FLTL director of operations, said that created a very stressful situation for the nonprofit.

“It was kind of a bummer to receive that short notice,” she said. “We, luckily, were able to find a place to store all of our things for that for a short period. We didn’t want to jump into a lease somewhere that wasn’t really perfect for us. And so, that was stressful, trying to find something that was in our budget and being accessible geographically.”

Debra Lewis, founder of FLTL and president of the FLTL Board of Directors, said it was challenging trying to find a new space.

“There’s not a lot available that’s affordable, especially for a small nonprofit,” she said. “There’s not a lot that even was available at a similar price and a similar size than we were renting before. We really only had a choice to go slightly bigger and slightly more expensive. And by just going out a little further into the mall, we were able to have a bigger space at a much more affordable price than we would have if we stayed sort of down the hill a little bit.”

Lewis sees the whole situation as a blessing in disguise.

“Now, a lot of new, fresh energy and new, fresh excitement has been put into the toy library,” she said. “Our new space in The Shops at Ithaca Mall has so much potential, and the toy library is going to be so much better. And we never would have made a move like this in the middle of what’s still going on with the pandemic. We just didn’t have a choice. But it turns out, I think that it’s going to be really, really good for us.”

The new location offers an array of benefits, Sauve and Lewis described. FLTL’s new space number is D-07, the space previously occupied by The Cornell Store — between Regal Cinema and Target. With roughly 1,500 square feet, the new location offers a much larger space for young children to play on site, an area with tables for older kids to play with the library’s game, puzzle and activity kit collection and an option to use the foyer in the mall outside of the unit when needed.

In addition, Sauve said, the bigger space will help strengthen community partnerships, like what it currently has with the Sciencenter.

“We’ve typically, in a normal year, partnered with other organizations to have playtime,” she said. “That’s something that we’d like to start up again at some point, and we have the possibility to potentially host playtimes in our new space because it’s so large. … Other organizations can provide toys or educational materials that we can put into our lending, which benefits both of us [and] our broader audience.”

Having more space also allows FLTL to expand its collection, which, according to a recent press release, already includes over 1,100 toys for borrowing.

Though the new location is a great move for the nonprofit, it’s also significantly more expensive, so FLTL has launched a crowdfunding campaign with a goal of $10,000 to help offset those costs. The GoFundMe campaign can be found at gofund.me/3dbc2dcc. Thanks to the generosity of the Triad Foundation, any gift made to FLTL’s campaign will be matched 1-to-1, up to $5,000.

“We’re almost about a fifth of the way to our goal, which is pretty good considering we haven’t even opened our doors yet,” Lewis said. “We’ll be continuing that GoFundMe campaign at least through the month of October. And hopefully, we’ll hit our goal.”

Lewis said FLTL’s move will go a long way to help the nonprofit recover from the many struggles it has faced during the pandemic. When the pandemic first hit, FLTL had to shut down, later opening for curbside pickup only.

“It wasn’t until this past summer that we started letting people back into the library to browse and look at toys and pick them out,” Lewis said. “Our location was only 450 square feet, so we couldn’t really safely let people in there, … and then once we started opening it up for browsing again, we were only letting one family in at a time to look at toys and pick them out.”

As a result, revenue dropped considerably in 2020, and while the situation has improved a bit this year, there are still plenty of challenges.

“Finances for small nonprofits are always an issue,” Lewis said. “People are hurting more financially, probably, now due to the pandemic for a variety of reasons, so we really just need to fundraise even harder. And now, our expenses are increasing a little bit with our new space and our expanded hours.”

Thankfully, the community’s response to FLTL’s plight has been filled with hands-on help and encouragement, including financial assistance from individuals and organizations and work from FLTL volunteers.

“Our Board really all came together,” Sauve said. “We have volunteers from the community and from within our membership who helped pack and move. And we received the grant from Southern Tier Tuesdays and we started a crowdfunding campaign. Ithaca just shows up, I feel like, when you really need it.”

Sauve said that folks are so supportive because of the profound impact the library has had and continues to have on the community.

“It’s a great opportunity for the community to have access to toys because kids need toys to learn and play and grow,” she said. “We also know that toys are very expensive for parents to buy, and kids might play with a toy for a week, and then it gets lost under a bed or in a closet. And so, the toy library offers exposure to a lot of different types of educational toys and puzzles and games for family night. And I think without that, some families would not have access. Without that, some families would spend a lot of money on toys.”

Overall, Lewis and Sauve are both excited for what this new space has to offer and are hopeful for the future of FLTL.

“This really is like phase two in the evolution of the toy library,” Lewis said. “We founded it, we got it up and running, we kept it alive during the pandemic, and now, we’re growing. And now, we’re going to be seeing what even more potential that the community can bring to the toy library because it really is the community joining together.”

For more information about FLTL, visit its website at fingerlakestoylibrary.org or email Lewis at debra.lewis@fingerlakestoylibrary.org.