Online Newsletter #23

GREAT NEWS FROM JOLLY OLD ENGLAND:
On April 14, 2003, Ian Hearne was approved as Branch Manager of branch number 22 of The Happy Factory in Woodly, Berkshire, England.  Ian has had many years of experience in the construction business and says there are a lot of good people there who would like to server little children.  Welcome to The Happy Factory family.  With this branch in England and one in Brazil, that makes the Cedar City Happy Factory World Headquarters.

BRANCH MANAGERS – OUR UN-SUNG HEROES.
We have learned over the years that The Happy Factory branch managers are a very special type of people.  They all own and maintain their shops and equipment, find their own wood supply, and provide a facility where The Happy Factory toys can be made.  All of this is at their own expense; they are out of pocket every month to make this process work.  If you have chance when you are helping, picking up toys to paint, or any other reason, just thank them for all of their efforts that make this service for little children so successful.  The Happy Factory has now delivered more than 235,000 toys worldwide.

STEAM SHOVELS:
The latest project for the Cedar City branch is to provide 50 steam shovels to the Clark County Nevada Board of Education.  These will be used for the little children in their special needs program.  We thank the Las Vegas Yellow Cab Company for their generous donation that made this project possible.
We had a nice experience at the Fiddler’s Elementary the other day.  One of the students took a steam shovel to school for a project about The Happy Factory.  One of the classmates was little Tony who is autistic and they have difficulty getting him to use the therapy equipment.  When he saw the steam shovel he wanted to get on it.  He did, and he stayed there most of the day.  We were later asked if there was any way Tony could get a steam shovel to take home to help him with this therapy.  In talking to the teacher, it was decided that The Happy Factory would provide one toy for each pupil for them to paint and keep for their very own and in addition to a toy; Tony would get his steam shovel.  The children were so excited and a day or two later we received this big poster that said how beautiful the toys turned out and that Tony gave every one of them a turn on his steam shovel.

THE NEW HAPPY FACTORY
Things are going well for our purposed new building.  Blackburn & Associates have been awarded the bid as the general contractor.  The appraised value of the building will be $161,3000.  It is a 40′ x 80′ (3200 sq. ft.) It is a pre-engineered steel truss building that will be fully insulated, a fire sprinkling system, rest rooms and the corporate office.  It will be fully air-conditioned and have an outside dust collector system.  The parking lot will be black top and the front of the lot will be landscaped.  It will be a first class facility.  There will be an area for our steam shovel production, an area for toy production and an area that will accommodate 80 or 90 people for various humanitarian service projects.
There will be a catalog that groups or individuals can look at to decide what projects they would like.  We will provide the guidelines and the list of materials that they will have to furnish for the project ( we do not subsidize any project.)  This new facility will be available to Individuals or groups in the evenings by appointment.  All projects will be supervised and the quality will be controlled.  This will be a great facility for all ages to participate in doing service, from kindergarten through senior citizen.
This will be a Happy Factory Service Center and a great facility for up lifting the lives of many in our community.
Our fund raising committee is well organized and very excited about this new building.
There will be a thermometer on the corner of main and 200 North that will show the progress of donations.  The Jazz Bear will be promoting The Happy Factory June 12, from 5:30 to 7:00 pm on the lawn south of the SUU Centrum in conjunction with Utah Summer Games.  We will be participating with fund raising activities July 4th and will have a booth at the July Jamboree, July 12th at the City Park.  There will be a black tie dinner August 14th and Thurl Bailey will head the program.  We will be participating with the Iron County Fair and other events that may come available.

DONATION:
One day when I picked up the mail, I noticed a small envelope that just had a street address and Tooele, UT, for the return address.  I was curious and opened the envelope and there were two one-dollar bills, a little yellow memo sheet in a paper clip.  The memo said, “This is all I can do, I hope it will help.”  When my vision came back, I put it back in the envelope, and I thought, it costs us 40 cents to make  a toy; that’s 2 1/2 tows for a dollar.  “Two dollars, hope it will help.”  I think there are five children somewhere in the world that think it helped a lot.
We ask you for your help in this great undertaking.  We fell that a donation to The Happy Factory is more like an investment in the future of little lives.
Please make checks payable to The Happy Factory, Inc. or The Happy Factory, Inc. facility Fund.  Thank You