As you may or may not be aware, LEGO’s Star Wars-themed holiday microsite, LEGOSantaYoda.com launched a few weeks ago. From the site, you can vote in a poll, view a gift guide chock full of LEGO Star Wars goodness, and even enter in a weekly contest. There is one other major aspect and its their e-greeting cards. You can send a virtual greeting card to a friend or enemy, and for every greeting sent, LEGO will donate a toy to Toys for Tots, up to 1 million toys. The catch is that the recipient of the email has to click on the link provided in order for the email to count, and for the “toys given” counter to increment. As of three days ago, the total amount of toys donated was an embarrassingly low number, somewhere in the 1800’s. That’s when we decided to step in and do something about it.
We offered up a prize, a copy of 8095 General Grievous’ Starfighter, given to a winner selected at random. All you had to do was send an e-greeting to giveaways@fbtb.net with a message of “For the Tots!” and you were entered. And you could enter as many times as you wish. My cohort Ken “buriedbybricks” Robichaud also offered a prize for the most e-greetings sent. The response has been tremendous to say the least. We are now at 65,299 toys donated. But that’s not enough. I want to hit that 1 million toy mark. It is possibly the easiest way to donate a toy to Toys for Tots. And here’s how you do it:
- Go to LEGOSantaYoda.com
- Select a greeting card.
- Fill in the form with your name and email address. Enter FBTB for recipient and giveaways@fbtb.net as the address. Enter a message of “For the Tots!”
- Hit send.
- Hit the back button on your browser.
- The information you entered should still be there. Hit send again!
- Go to step 5
I guarantee that every email received will be read and clicked through to get the toy counter to rise.
Now here’s where things get interesting. In an attempt to unite the AFOL community behind the cause, I’ve contacted a few other AFOL sites to help spread the word on our effort. Brickset is getting in on the action and will be donating a prize to be awarded to another random lucky winner. Toys’N’Bricks is having a contest of their own. And in addition to the General Grievous set, FBTB is upping the ante. One lucky winner will receive the following prize package (MacBook Pro not included):
You’ll get every single LEGO Star Wars promo minifigure ever made: Chrome C-3PO, Chrome Darth Vader, Chrome Stormtrooper, White Boba Fett, and Shadow ARF Trooper. I’ve been saving them for a worthy cause and I can’t think of anything better than trying to raise 1 million toys for Toys for Tots. With the holidays upon us and all the sales news flying around, it’s easy to forget about those less fortunate. It doesn’t take a lot of time, energy or effort. And it costs nothing. I didn’t do a charity drive this year for various reasons, but I’ve adopted this little endeavor as our 2011 charitable effort.
If there is one cause that Adult Fans of LEGO can and should unite behind, this is it. We can all remember what it was like to opening up a LEGO set on Christmas, and this donation drive gives needy children the opportunity to experience that same joy. You have a chance to make a LEGO fan for life, so why not? Send an email, a toy gets donated. It couldn’t be any easier. So what are you waiting for? Get clicking!
