Hillsboro toy store owner hits on a winning solution to fight coronavirus keep her store alive and help children
Business was booming for Michelle Smith's three Piccolo Mondo Toys stores in Hillsboro and Beaverton – well, it was until the coronavirus intervened.
Smith's business concept is for the experience at her stores to be hands-on and interactive. But that kind of shopping isn't possible now because of social distancing.
She has kept the lights on by selling on the web and offering curbside pickup, but that isn't playing to Piccolo Mondo's strengths.
At her downtown Hillsboro store recently, "we had a really slow day," Smith says. "Our revenue literally was four dollars and 99 cents."
That clearly isn't sustainable. At about the same time, Oregon schools closed because of the pandemic.
Smith was talking to a fellow toy store owner in Buffalo, New York, who had set up a plan to solicit donations from the public to be used to make up activity bags that could be donated to needy children who couldn't be at school.
Smith liked the idea and hit up business consultant Cindy Cosenzo of AgeCelebration to help her implement it.
Consenzo is trying to keep small businesses in Hillsboro afloat. Smith's idea dovetailed perfectly with innovative methods she advocates to do that.
"Michelle is such a great business owner in our community," Cosenzo said. "Business owners with bricks and mortar stores are hurting right now."
They mapped out a plan and roped in Lindsay Garcia, principal of Hillsboro's Eastwood Elementary School, to help with the distribution.
Interested donors could go to the Piccolo Mondo website, and for $20 purchase an activity bag containing games, puzzles, workbooks, colored pencils and other similar, child-friendly things.
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The goal was to have 25 activity bags they would donate to families participating in Eastwood's weekly food pantry program when they came to the school to pick up the food.
Consenzo suggested older adults who were part of a program in which they read aloud to Eastwood students might want to contribute to help get the program off the ground. They did and it launched.
"We quickly exceeded 25 bags," Smith said. "We were able to go to the school with 38 bags. We thought, gosh, there are more schools."
So, there are. Visitors to the Piccolo Mondo website now have a choice of donating to four other Hillsboro grade schools – Free Orchards, Minter Bridge, Mooberry and W. Verne McKinney. Hillsboro's Downtown Business Association is involved.
"This is a community collaboration," Cosenzo says. "There are layers and layers and layers to this thing."
Smith is excited about the number people with skin in the game.
"It's win, win, win," Smith says. "We get to stay open. My employees keep working. They have a job to do filling these bags, which is great. The donors feel good. Everybody feels good when you're making a difference and giving to others.
"And, the kids get a little hope. They get toys and educational things that are screen free. Kindergartners are being asked to be on-screen way more. It's hard for kids."
Which certainly is true. But in Hillsboro it's perhaps not quite as hard now.
-- Ken Goe
kgoe@oregonian.com | @KenGoe
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