You might be surprised, the toys are a ‘tiny’ part of why Hope Houses Workshop.

Are you a conformist?  Same here, so it’s only fitting to break the golden rule of blogging and write a sappy first post about why Hope Houses Workshop, why dollhouses and what is with the buy-one give-one anyway.  We’re with you, heirloom dollhouses seem passe, old fashioned, maybe even out of vogue.  You might be surprised to learn it’s not really about the toys.

What’s the biggest, hardest thing you’ve ever willfully done and why?  One of ours was putting the future of our family in front of titles and letters behind our names.  This isn’t a unique scenario, but it’s part of our story and a big part of the why around Hope Houses Workshop.

Kim and I grew up in the small town in rural Central, NY – the Finger Lakes region to be exact.  I can still remember seeing her ride on the janitors lap while he mowed grass at our Elementary School.  Yes…a different kind of Mayberry and No…we weren’t sweethearts yet.  My dirt road was two miles long and we were one of two houses.  Finding hobbies was important, wood was plentiful and sawdust became inevitable.   Kim, grew up a hardworking fourth-of-four farm girl.  The family grew grapes and was always working two or three side businesses to spread the risk Mother Nature puts on farmers.  Where and how we grew up gave us a lot in common.  One thing we discovered later was a deep entrepreneurial spirit, and combined, we had courage to act.

From there we both worked real hard to create opportunities for ourselves and a future family.  Our girls came with some difficulty after eight years of marriage.  Kim returned to work and we invited Allison into our family to nanny the girls.  Allison was a gift; patience beyond measure and thankfully a healthy sense of adventure.  Before we knew it, Kim and I had logged seven different addresses in four different states, none really feeling like home.  One of our biggest hardest ‘things’ happened while living in Atlanta.

Atlanta was home after a corporate relocation occurred in Kim’s work.  The move would force a resignation, but i was going to keep after it with a tiny consulting shingle.  Again, we managed to keep opportunity alive; opportunities that slowly we wearing away at our family.  Tapping in, tapping out, we played ‘travel for work’ like an angry game of Simon.  Our rule, one of us would be home each night with the girls even if it meant passing in the airport.  Does any of this craziness sound familiar?  Simon was about to buzz…our game was coming to an end.  We did the usual pro/con list, but this time we would both quit our jobs, sell the house, leave Allison with friends and a new job in Atlanta and be open to wherever we could drop anchor for the sake of our little family.  Kim would make the dough and I would bake it.

This would be one of the hardest, biggest things we would willfully choose to do, and it didn’t get easier right away.   What did happen though is we began realizing how blessed we had been all along and still almost screwed it up.  We would anchor our ship in the windy city, Chicago.  Kim would do great finding work and I was settling in with a new title Director of Character Development, Lefko Inc.  Our lens on family was changed forever.

If we could almost screw up family, then how were single parents still doing it?  How would children without families ever learn to do it for themselves?  For years, on long drives back and forth to NY to see family, we would hash over this idea of a buy-one give-one dollhouses.  Buying one would deliver two, one to the customer and one to a child less familiar with intact family.  I was getting deep into what the science said about connection, about what reading with a child does beyond literacy, how open-ended play builds cognitive skills and of course ways to make sawdust.  Kim was changed too, developing business plans, researching markets and cautiously fanning the flame.  As a family, we built our first dollhouse in the garage a couple weeks before Christmas 2010 for a girl named Shantel; we didn’t know her.  Kim was traveling for work and returned in time to grab one of the last remaining ‘wishes’ on the company giving tree.  How many wishes on that tree do you think were little girls asking for dollhouses?  Her wish was a whisper, it became our command and we’ve never looked back.  Thanks Shantel.

The next year we built a few dollhouses and through friends found candidate kids.  The next year more, and then more.  We found a great partner in Hephzibah Children’s Association to reach those kids farther from the love of family.  As we pushed toward small business, God would put unbelievable people in our path to fan the flame and even join in the mission of making family popular again.

You see, the dollhouse is just a fun place where imagination happens.  It’s like the court beneath the basketball players, a place for game. It’s the bar beneath the gymnast or the train on a morning commute; a dollhouse ignites creativity and imagination.  The science says imagination is like a muscle, it needs exercise to grow and Hope Houses do this.  Hope is a belief that you can realize what you can imagine, and doing life with family is our hope for every child.  These play spaces take children to other places.  For some, it’s the den to play with mom or dad.  After a couple years of doing this, we know for others, it can be transformational.  Yup, I went there.

When is the last time a total stranger bought into your personal success in life?  Imagine the feeling in these children knowing a stranger made a purchase with purpose, and that purpose was finding you when you might be at your worst.  A sense of self-worth would come over you and that feeling of confidence would reappear.  That toy would bring years of imaginative play and would shape you, literally, into the person you want to become.  It would create a sense of understanding and importance around doing life with family.  Purchasing wants or needs with purpose can be transformational.  We’ve connected our buy-one give-one business model with some outstanding Give Partner agencies to help make this storyline happen over and over again.  Listen to April from ChildServ or Deanna from Marillac St. Vincent.

Play is critical to childhood development, love happens through connection and family is a human essential. Work hard on your family and make every effort to help others with theirs.  We fly by the handle #FamilyIsKey and we’re grateful you’re with us.

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