Ontario man rallies handymen across Canada to build toys for kids who lost homes in wildfires

When Andy Tamas heard about the wildfires burning in Nova Scotia last month, he wanted to do something to help.

The Ontario man contacted his friend, Denis St. Pierre, who had recently moved to Nova Scotia to be closer to his grandchildren, to ask him how they were doing.

St. Pierre was fine, but his daughter and her young family had lost their home and everything in it — including a wooden rocking horse that her father had built for her when she was a child.

"It was a bit of a family heirloom … she loved it and of course it and a lot of other things went up in flame that day," St. Pierre told CBC Radio's Information Morning Nova Scotia on Thursday.

St. Pierre asked Tamas about a set of plans to make another rocking horse to replace the one lost in the fire. But that got Tamas thinking about something else.

The original rocking horse was in St. Pierre's granddaughter's bedroom when the house burned to the ground. He built it for his own daughter when she was a child, and recently fixed it up for his granddaugters. (Submitted by Denis St. Pierre)

He decided to send some wooden toys to St. Pierre's two young granddaughters.

"I put a few in the box and sent them to him and he said that they were a great hit," Tamas said.

St. Pierre said his granddaughters were delighted by the wooden toys, which included two planes, two cars and a hippo that goes "chomp, chomp, chomp" when you roll it across the floor.

"Toys today, a lot of them are made with plastic or whatever, plush toys, and this is something totally different," St. Pierre said.

"They just love that there's something they can play on the floor with, the little cars, how they roll around, and they had a lot of fun with them."

Good deed inspires larger effort

But Tamas didn't stop there. He said their delight by a simple box of wooden toys has inspired a larger movement across the country.

He's a member of the Men's Shed in Arnprior, Ont., a national group for men to get together to tinker, do woodworking and play games — and stave off loneliness.

He contacted Men's Sheds Canada to see if this could become a larger initiative.

"There's been wildfires all across the country and there's families in [St. Pierre's] daughter's position all over the place," Tamas said.

"And there's a whole bunch of geezers, old guys like me … who are looking for ways to be of service and to be of use and regain a sense of purpose that a lot of guys have lost when they get out of their normal work and retire."

The guys really got into it ... it was really heartwarming to see.

- Andy Tamas

Tamas said Men's Sheds Canada was happy to take on the initiative, so he enlisted men from across the country, from Arnprior to Squamish, B.C. One group even donated 50 locomotive toys sets to kids in need.

"This thing has grown from me sending a few toys to Denis to sort of a national collaborative movement, which is really rewarding," he said.

Some of the wooden toys made by member of the Men's Shed in Arnprior, Ont. (Submitted by Andy Tamas)

But one challenge, he said, was the cost of postage to send the toys. Not wanting that to deter these efforts, he contacted his local Lions Club to see if they could help.

They were more than willing to help, he said, and even hosted a "packing party" on Wednesday.

"We had a bunch of toys ready to go, so they took them and they packed them up and they put them in the mail yesterday and they should arrive at your end of the world sometime soon," he said.

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Some of the toys will be going to the St. Margarets Bay toy library in Upper Tantallon.

Tamas said he's pleased with the effort the group is going to to help families affected by the wildfires.

"The guys really got into it. You see a bunch of old geezers sanding little cars and planes. It was really heartwarming to see," he said.