A five-year-old Weatherby Lake resident is doing his part to help the kids of Ukraine.
It’s a toy drive and it’s the idea of Aedan Keating, age 5.
“The objective of the toy drive is to help those kids who had to leave their home with hardly any toys if any at all, clothes and all the necessities, to get back on their feet,” said Megan Keating, Aedan’s mother.
Megan and her husband Bradley are impressed with the effort that Aedan and his 10-year-old sister, Addison, have put into the project and doing all they can to help.
Megan tells the story this way:
“A few days after the war in the Ukraine started, my husband and I were getting ready to take our 5-year-old son, Aedan, out to Crown Center to hang out with his big sister and her Girl Scout Troop at a cookie booth. We were watching the news while getting ready and the coverage of the war came on the TV and we were trying to usher him out of the room so we could get ready when he saw the recording of the kids crossing the border into Poland (or Hungary) without toys only with their suitcases. He was so concerned that his first question was ‘Mommy, where are their toys?’
“When we told him what was going on, he immediately jumped into action and started going through all of his toys and all of a sudden he added, “Mommy, do you think Nonny and Pop Pop would let me have a box up at their store to collect toys?”
Megan’s parents are Pride and Cathi Fox, also of Weatherby Lake, owners of Goin Postal in Platte City.
“I told him that I would ask them. I immediately got on the phone with my mom and dad and asked them if they would want to help us out with this and they were up for the challenge. Well, as we were leaving the cookie booth, we were telling our 10-year-old daughter about it and she said that she wanted to help and collect the necessary items like toiletry and other items to send over. We even started a Facebook page (Kids of Ukraine Toy Drive) and have met people from Louisiana to Washington State who are sending us items and joining to help out the cause,” Megan says.
She said they will accept gently used/new toys and clothing. A drop box is located at Goin Postal, which is open from 8-6 during the week and 9-1 on Saturdays at 1302 Platte Falls Road in Platte City.
“People can find us on Facebook at Kids of Ukraine Toy Drive. It is an open group and you can join to see updates and posts. Sometimes I let the kids go live on Facebook and talk about their idea,” Megan said.
“We have no idea how we are going to get this stuff to them because we were working with the Red Cross but I was given information that was not verified so we are looking for any way we can think of to get these items to the families who are being displaced because of this war,” Megan explained.
“We are currently working on a place to take the toys or a way to get the toys to the kids. I know that a lot of people are just accepting monetary donations, but we are working on getting that arranged. We would love to partner with schools all over the local Kansas City area,” she said.