A note about toy safety from Imaginations Toy & Furniture Co. and Imagination Station Imaginations and Imagination Station are members of the speciality toy retailers group called ASTRA. Through this network of toy leaders, we are all working very hard to provide you, our valued customer, safe, high quality products for the children in your lives. The following paragraphs were taken from the ASTRA website, to help you understand what the organization believes in, and what we all are doing to protect our children. ********** The American Specialty Toy Retailing Association (ASTRA) is Leading the Way Through Play by providing quality products that help children have fun, achieve success and lead happy, healthy lives. The largest association for companies in the toy and children’s products arenas, ASTRA brings retailers, manufacturers, and industry affiliates together to help deliver offerings that serve children’s best interests. As ASTRA Members, we believe anyone who distributes toys to children has a responsibility to ensure those products do no harm. ASTRA encourages all its members to be vigilant in their individual efforts to uphold that commitment to our children. Consumers all over the country are alarmed by the recent rash of toy recalls questioning whether they can be confident any toy produced overseas is safe for their children. There are and will be exceptions, but the vast majority of toys we sell are proven safe. It is up to every ASTRA member to assure consumers we take this issue very seriously and are doing everything we can to keep our children safe. ASTRA members share this commitment to protecting children from any harm, especially through the use of the toy products we produce and distribute by knowing how to respond before (if that situation were to occur), during and after a product is recalled. ASTRA commits to take a more active role in delivering information to our members about their individual responsibilities for product recall. We will work closely with the TIA (Toy Industry Association) to distribute information to manufacturers about their responsibilities to ensure their products are produced safely and where they can find help to test their products before distribution. In addition, we are working closely with a local Illinois organization, Kids In Danger and the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission), to provide retailers with up to the minute recall information and instructions for their stores. Kids In Danger (KID) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting children by improving children's product safety. KID was founded in 1998 by the parents of sixteen-month-old Danny Keysar who died in his Chicago childcare home when a portable crib collapsed around his neck. Although the portable crib had been recalled five years earlier, word of its danger had not reached Danny’s parents, caregiver, or a state inspector who visited the home just eight days before Danny’s death. "Kids In Danger appreciates the efforts ASTRA members make to provide safe quality toys for their customers. The recent spate of recalls involving lead makes us all worry. Retailers often find themselves in the same boat as consumers -- learning of a recall through the media. Kids In Danger will work with ASTRA to get information to you as soon as possible about recalls and other product safety issues and welcome your role in encouraging manufacturers to do stringent testing for lead and other hazards before products reach your store shelves," says Nancy A. Cowles, Executive Director, Kids In Danger. ********** As speciality toy store owners, we are working very closely with all our manufacturers to assure each product we purchase is free of lead and any other substance that could be harmful to children. We look for wholesalers that are small, well run operations that care about making quality toys that are fun, educational and safe. We appreciate you as a customer, and hope you will call or visit the stores if you have any questions concerning any of our products. We have copies of letters, from our wholesalers, expressing their concerns over the recalls, and their confidence in the products they manufacturer. Please feel free to come in and read through these, or we are happy to make copies of any letters for you. Thank you for supporting our locally owned businesses. We will always strive to provide you the safest, well made, quality toys for your wonderful children. Sincerely, Paula & Keith Bolte, Owners Imaginations Toy & Furniture Co., 1531 South Main St., Blacksburg, VA 24060. Phone- 540-951-8515 ImaginationStation 2126 Colonial Ave., Roanoke, VA 24015. Phone- 540-343-7646 ASTRA website Kids in Danger website: http://www.KidsinDanger.org TIA website: http://www.toyassociation.org |
