Our love of LEGO has benefited I LUG NY members in many ways and yesterday I had the opportunity to take part in something special to benefit others.
Yesterday, the Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park, New York received a donation of new, sealed LEGO sets. I was told this donation of LEGO would go to the young patients in the hospital as well as placed in the playrooms there for patients to use with their families during their stay. The individuals in charge of accepting donations (Nicole and Colleen) were very appreciative, helpful and quick to respond to all of my questions.The origin for this donation actually began across the pond, in the United Kingdom on the Brickset forums. To make a long story short, “sirkevbags” (Kevin Gascoigne) emailed to see if I would be a contact person on behalf of the Brickset community in New York to handle a donation of LEGO to a local children’s hospital. I agreed to help him in this endeavor and he sent me funds to pay for the donation of LEGO. In between building Brand Ribbon models and sets for two new LEGO Stores opening in Freehold, New Jersey and Westchester, New York, I set out to put together this donation of LEGO. After reaching the donation value, additional LEGO was added to the collection as a bonus to cover the tax as a bonus from I LUG NY. After a couple weeks of gathering the LEGO for the donation it was ready to be dropped off yesterday.
Will-nearly all of the LEGO you dropped off was included in the donation and as per your wish the remainder will be the beginning of the next donation of LEGO to a children’s hospital!
Phil-the pink buckets you picked up were included in the donation. Thanks for coming through with the last minute request of the Pink Brick Buckets.
Hopefully something like this can become a staple of the I LUG NY calendar of events for years to come. I was operated on as a child at this hospital and was treated like a little King which is why this hospital was chosen.
The following statistics can help tell a clearer story of how much LEGO was sent over to the hospital. Nearly all of the LEGO donated was bought at a steep discount because us AFOLs know how to shop for LEGO and hardly ever pay full price!
Total Sets Donated—–96
Total Parts Donated——9,842
Total Spent on LEGO—–$642.88
Total retail value of the donation including tax——-1241.36 which means that the donation of $600 was basically doubled!!!
Price per piece ratio is a common factor among the Adult LEGO Fan community in determining whether or not a set is a good or not so good buy with the rule of thumb being that about 10 cents per piece is the standard for a LEGO set. Anything below this ratio and the set is a better than average value. The price per piece ratio for this donation is .065 cents a part!
