What would you do if your kids came home from school with Beanie Babies that were themed after the Despicable Me franchise? Several parents may be wondering who sent nearly 75,000 of them to the Los Angeles Unified School District, Insider reported.
The donation came from a nonprofit that typically serves homeless shelters and food banks.
According to Insider, the mysterious arrival of the stuffed animals was three years in the making, beginning when 11 semi-trucks-worth of the toys arrived at a warehouse for the nonprofit, Shelter Partnership. Over that time, the donor’s identity has remained a secret. And the school district is not sure what it will even do with the beanie babies.
There’s another problem. While the toys may engage some Los Angeles students, there aren’t enough to go around. There are 519,568 students enrolled in LAUSD schools, according to district statistics from the 2021-2022 school year, with more than 275,000 in pre-Kindergarten through sixth grade alone.
According to Insider, a Los Angeles Unified spokesperson in an emailed statement that the donated items will be used by schools to “support their student programs.”
“Items donated to schools until inventory is exhausted,” the spokesperson added, but did not answer questions regarding how the toys would be divided among LAUSD students or whether these types of donations are typical for the district to receive.
LAist reported that local nonprofit Shelter Partnership made the donation of the beanie babies to the district back in December.
How did the nonprofit get a hold of so many plushy Minions? Jennifer Marquez, a senior director of product donations for Shelter Partnership, said they received a call from a donor in Chicago back in 2020 asking if they’d accept the toys.
According to LAist, that’s haw 11 semi-trucks, or 600 pallets, full of Minions-themed Ty Beanie Babies made their way from Chicago to Los Angeles. Since the Minions arrived at Shelter Partnership’s warehouse they’ve been distributed to other nonprofits and schools within Los Angeles. The remaining inventory of Beanie Babies – 70 pallets – has now been accepted by LAUSD.
According to LAUSD’s March 7 meeting report, the donated products are meant to be distributed to students across LAUSD. Neither the district’s press office nor the board member offices we contracted were able to comment further. Donations are managed by the district’s Accounting and Disbursements Division, which has not yet fulfilled LAist’s request for public records.
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