This holiday season, donating toys to sick children is being made easy by a Gainesville company — all you have to do is like them.
Locally owned business New Scooters 4 Less is making an impression in Gainesville through their online campaign Likes 4 Tikes.
Collin Austin, owner of New Scooters 4 Less and the company’s “chief of everything,” enthusiastically shared the history behind the campaign and the prospects for this year.
“My sister is a nurse at Shands, and she told me that she sees kids spending Christmas in a hospital bed every year,” Austin said. “It made me think, since we want to give back, that maybe those kids should be our focus.”
The initial pledge of the online campaign was that for every “like” the New Scooters 4 Less Facebook page received, the business would donate $1 to buying toys for sick children at Shands. Quickly after the campaign started, it gained unexpected steam and developed a new pledge. For every “like” the Facebook page receives, New Scooters 4 Less will donate one new toy to Shands.
Celebrations Catering, who is sponsoring the campaign with Scooters 4 Less, offers a Thanksgiving feast meal package that allows customers to purchase a premade Thanksgiving meal with all of the trimmings for $150. For every $150 the company receives, it is donating $15 to the Likes 4 Tikes cause.
Along with Celebrations Catering, the youthful photo decor company Fracture has thrown its hat in the ring. Fracture plans to mirror the New Scooters 4 Less social media campaign by donating one toy to Shands for every new “like” on their Facebook page.
All the toys donated to the hospital would be placed at the doors of the children’s rooms unwrapped.
For Austin, that wasn’t good enough. He will wrap and decorate the gifts for the children at Shands on Dec. 20.
“We told Shands that we hope to generate enough toys to where they have to give them to another organization,” Austin said. “Plus, the best part of getting a toy is unwrapping it — we want them to have that.”
