Wooden cars delight Nicaraguan children - #lakewoodnews

Wooden cars created in Centennial resident Bob Wing's basement workshop and cars made by other Toys for God's Kids volunteers produced ear-to-ear smiles as they were placed in the hands of children in a small village in northern Nicaragua.

The toys were delivered by a team from Casa Unida Foundation, an all-volunteer organization based in Lakewood. In Nicaragua, the team stayed in the city of Somoto and traveled about 15 miles to Hermanos Martinez, a rural village that is home to 40 to 60 families of subsistence farmers, to distribute the toys during a children's July 29 vacation Bible school gathering.

"These families are very poor. They work their fields for food to feed the family and, when they do find work outside the village, the wage is $2.50 a day," Bob Moore, foundation president, said. "The children have few, if any, toys. We knew the wooden cars would be a hit. We were right. The children's smiles lit up the room as they hugged the toys and got down on the floor to play with them."

Lidia Lopez, 8, smiled as she and a friend raced their cars along the floor.

"I love my little car," she said through an interpreter. "It is a lot of fun to play with. I have never had a little toy car of my own before. I really like it."

Again through an interpreter, Juan Questros, the leader of the gathering and a local pastor, thanked those who made the toys and those who brought them to the village. He said it is a blessing for the village and a wonderful gift for the children.

The delivery of the wooden cars is another chapter in the history of Toys for God's Kids.

The toy car project Marlin Dorhut, of Denver, began when he saw the joy wooden cars brought children of poor families in late 2000. He was moved to establish Toys for God's Kids.

Today, hundreds of volunteers build the cars and distribute them to children in about 140 countries, including Mexico, South Korea and Iraq.

The original pattern was for toy cars about 6 inches long. But Wing, who worked on state-of-the-art equipment at IBM, his neighbor Jerry Corbo, a retired rocket scientist, and Corbo's wife, Leonora, are among the volunteer "smile-makers" producing "pocket cars" that are only a couple inches long.

Wing and Corbo gave members of the Casa Unida Foundation a bag of their cars when they learned the foundation was preparing for their trip to Nicaragua.

Moore also was given a box of the full-size cars to distribute on the Nicaraguan trip. Foundation volunteers handed a car to each child. The little cars produced squeals and giggles when received. The bigger children preferred the larger cars.

"It was fun handing out the cars," said Bob Moore Jr., a foundation member and Bob Moore's son. "The children really liked the cars, and definitely the rewards we received were the sparkle in their eyes and the smiles on their faces as they were handed a toy car."

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