Hilco Global announced it will be donating thousands of new children’s toys and baby products to underprivileged children throughout Chicago and Boston with an in-kind donation totaling $1 million retail. The donation is part of an ongoing company program called Hilco Helps, an annual community service commitment that Hilco Global conducts each year to support its corporate and employee commitment to various causes, often focused on children and education.
The Hilco Global large-scale toy donation will be distributed this summer in several ways. In Chicago, the toys will be distributed at branches of the Chicago Public Library as part of a promotion to encourage children in the city of Chicago to participate in its annual Rahm’s Readers Summer Learning Challenge. The Summer Learning Challenge encourages Chicago’s kids to read 20 minutes a day and participate in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) activities.
Additionally, Hilco Global has partnered with Cradles to Crayons (C2C) to distribute toys through C2C’s network of non-profit organizations to local kids living in poverty. C2C provides children from birth through age 12 who live in homeless or low-income situations with the essential items they need to thrive—at home, at school and at play.
Jeffrey B. Hecktman, Chairman and CEO of Hilco Global, said, “We have been really impressed with the work that the City of Chicago and CPL have been doing through the Rahm’s Readers Summer Learning program to prevent the “summer slide”, where children can lose up to three months of math and science learning during summer months if they do not remain engaged in learning.” The CPL program, which was relaunched in 2012 to go beyond a traditional summer reading initiative has already shown quantifiable results.
“We support proven programs that can demonstrate that they are effective, and this program works.”
An analysis by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago showed that children participating in the Library's Summer Learning Challenge demonstrated 15 percent greater reading gains and 20 percent greater math gains when compared to their peers who did not participate in the program.
“Hilco wanted to find a way to help encourage as many kids as possible to participate in this kind of a performance driven educational program. We believe the toys provide an added encouragement for kids to sign up and start reading this summer,” he said.
“Through this generous donation Hilco Global has demonstrated their support for performance driven summer educational programs by providing an incentive to participate in Rahm’s Readers, not that learning isn’t already incentive enough,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “Rahm’s Readers has proven to provide its participants demonstrable results, and I would like to thank both CPL and Hilco Global for their continued commitment to giving the children of Chicago a boost towards educational success.”
Research shows that having developmentally appropriate toys to play with is critical to a child’s learning and socio-emotional growth. Cradles to Crayons provides high-quality toy sets, along with mini libraries, clothing packs, hygiene items, school supplies and other items to more than 60,000 Chicagoland children living in poverty, homeless or crisis situations. As part of its partnership with Hilco Global, C2C will inspect all the toys and create age-appropriate toy sets for thousands of Chicago children.
“We are really impressed with the work that Cradles to Crayons has been doing in cities like Chicago and Boston and look forward to working with them on many Hilco Helps programs we have planned in the coming year,” Hecktman said.
A similar donation of toys and baby gear will be announced in the coming weeks in Boston, an important hub for Hilco Global, which has another large office with approximately 100 employees.
“We’re working with the Mayor’s office in Boston and Cradles to Crayons there as well” Hecktman said.