As a recent recipient of Ashland County Community Foundation’s Community and IMPACT Youth grants, RePlay for Kids can impact kids in Ashland County through many ways.

Kids with unique accessibility needs can enjoy toys that once seemed out of reach with the help of these grant dollars awarded to this nonprofit, which adapts battery-operated toys for this population and distributes the toys to families free of charge.

Over the past three years, 252 adapted toys have been distributed in Ashland County to kids in need, according to Natalie Wardega, Director of Operations for RePlay for Kids. The adaptation incorporates a new, external switch designed so kids with limited mobility can access the toy.

These grants have enabled RePlay for Kids to reach Ashland children through a variety of means.

A spring Community Grant will make toys available for loans through the Ashland Public Library. This grant also supports the organization’s RePlay@Home Program, which distributes a toy to low-income families in need of one.

Grants awarded have also helped make local toy adapting workshops possible and enable local students to give back to kids in their communities.

IMPACT Youth grants in recent years – including 2025 – allowed RePlay for Kids to give kits to Hillsdale High School so students can adapt the toys. The high school’s FFA program has been hosting toy adapting workshops since 2019. Engineering students are also trained in how to adapt the toys, and then those students train other students how to do it.

Wardega said the cost to adapt a toy is about $60, except for ride-on toys (such as Power Wheels), which cost about $500 to adapt. (These figures include the cost of the toys themselves.)

The toys are activated by external switches, since often the kids who need the toys don’t have the fine motor skills to operate the toys. They come in a variety of forms and are 3-D printed by RePlay for Kids. What normally costs between $40 and $200 can be done for under $15.

“Having access to toys is a huge need for them,” she said.

This nonprofit has not only impacted the kids who receive the toys, but those who volunteer to adapt them. Not only are they giving back to the community, but they are learning STEM-related skills in the process.

“Kids enjoyed the hands-on experiences,” Wardega said. “They have become very comfortable with soldering. They really enjoy giving back.”

After working hard to adapt the toys, she described how these students’ faces light up when they hit that button and see the toy work.

Those toys are then donated to Dale Roy School and issued to families requesting adapted toys. Therapists at Dale Roy School are also taught how to adapt toys.

Children and their families in need of a toy can also attend one of RePlay for Kids’ annual giveaways. Watching families receive the toys at these giveaways leaves a lasting impression on the staff. Wardega explained that choosing a toy that meets their needs is an opportunity that these families don’t get to have at other toy stores.

“It’s very emotional (to watch),” she observed.

Bill Memberg founded RePlay for Kids in 1999, after helping to adapt toys for the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities. After seeing a need in the community to help organizations like CCBDD, he founded this nonprofit.

Its administrative offices are in Medina, with a Creative Space in Solon where toys are stored/given away, and where toy workshops are conducted for volunteers. RePlay for Kids now employs nine staff members and has 170 workshops per year. In addition to workshops, this nonprofit has many volunteers who adapt and repair the toys for
distribution to families in Northeast Ohio.

To learn more about RePlay for Kids, visit https://replayforkids.org/. To learn more about how you may be eligible for grants from ACCF, visit https://ashlandforgood.org/grants/.

If you would like to join our family of donors who help make grants like this possible, contact our President/CEO Jim Cutright 419-281-4733 or cutty@ashlandforgood.org.