Since the Industrial Revolution, society has struggled to protect its youngest members from the vagaries of the market. Yet for decades, young sharks nonetheless have hit the hard streets, peddling Girl Scout cookies and lemonade despite child-labor laws.
Now, in Durango, kinder-capitalists are being asked to contribute to their society, not by paying taxes – which is still an adult privilege – but by helping out needy children.
On Nov. 16, Durango Toy Depot is “inviting all young entrepreneurs to set up shop and be your own boss for the day!” as part of the Kidz 2 Kidz Flea Market at La Plata County Fairgrounds.
The idea is simple: Kids bring toys they’re bored with, sell them to other kids, and the proceeds of admission ($1 per entrant) go to buying backpacks for kids at Manna Soup Kitchen.
Like many genius business ideas, the flea market’s profit model is incredibly simple.
Kids tire of toys at a staggering rate.
Parents, in turn, tire of finding (and sometimes tripping upon) discarded toys beneath beds, car seats and piles of laundry.
Moreover, with Christmas coming up, supply and demand is reaching a crisis point: Many families desperately need to find new space on the living room floor where children can abandon their new toys.
Betty Heuss, co-owner, operator and self-proclaimed “instigator of fun” at Durango Toy Depot, said she hopes dozens of children attend.
“This year we decided to open up the flea market to the whole universe. We have room for 75 booths, at $5 a pop,” she said. “So we’re hoping to have at least 75 booths. It would be wonderful to raise $500 for Manna.”
While the flea market is attempting to funnel kids’ money-making instincts for a charitable purpose, many children are being battered by adult-managed capitalism. Since the recession, the problems of child hunger and child poverty have grown worse throughout the country and in La Plata County.
Durango School District 9-R said last year that 36 percent of its students qualify for free or reduced lunches – up from 28 percent in 2003.
May Oles, director of home-school support group Kinder Trek, said children can help.
On Wednesday, Oles led five home-schooled children aged 5 to 8 into Durango Toy Depot, toys in hand, for a lesson in doing business ahead of the flea market.
First, the children pooled their toys in a pile.
Then the girls, Siri Weigle and Carson Williamson, took a turn playing shopkeepers.
Like a store manager with her eye on the bottom line, Oles affably admonished the girls – who’d become distracted by certain toys – “Girls, it’s called ‘time and money.’ You have three minutes to set up shop!”
The shopkeepers, money stuffed in apron pockets, began dutifully laying out their wares for purchase, carefully arranging toy guns, a gorilla picture book and a white cowbell (that Carson seemed to innately understand capable of making loud chimes) on a table for their male peers to peruse.
When the boys took their turn behind the counter, trade was completely derailed by the pricing gun, which Finn Powell struggled to stop using. He was so delighted by the mechanics of it – just point it at merchandise and pull the trigger – that soon, every toy in the shop and Tabor Williamson’s arms were labeled for sale at 10 cents.
Evan Robinson, who’d been engrossed by the mysterious workings of a calculator, took a very grown-up tone and told his colleagues 10 cents was far too low.
“My mom would price me at $200,” he said confidently. “I know it.”
During the course of the outing, the children seemed to master several aspects of commercial practice, including negotiation.
When Carson Williamson approached the counter with an enormous toy car she wished to purchase, she refused to relinquish it to her brother Tabor on vague but personal grounds. Tabor said calmly, “I can’t scan it if you don’t give it to me,” and she, perceiving this reasonable, promptly turned it over.
However, the pricing concept continued to prove evasive, with the children guessing that the car – which must easily have cost $80 – was either worth $20 or $109.
Heuss said it was intellectually difficult for children as young as 6 to fully grasp capitalism.
“Money is so conceptual,” she said.
But the principle animating the flea market – helping needy children – seemed to come easily to the home-school children during their dry run at the Durango Toy Depot.
At one point, Oles asked Evan whether he’d found it difficult to choose some toys among his collection to give up.
“No, not at all,” he said. “I asked my little sister. We said this toy we want to get rid of, this toy we want to keep. I had a lot of fun with those toys when I was little, little, little. But someone else will have fun with them now.”
Evan said he expected his bounty would fetch about $500 at the flea market.
“Then maybe I can get a $500 Millennium Falcon,” he said, referring to the spaceship piloted by Han Solo in Star Wars – a ship that likely would cost NASA trillions of dollars to produce in future centuries when “light-speed” technology is available.
Though Evan’s sense of money remained based in the fantastic realm of preadolescent imagination, his heart proved more grounded in reality than his math.
Oles asked Evan why participating in the flea market affair was important at all.
“Because kids can help other kids,” he said.
Then, he, smiling, fled to join his fellow shopkeepers, and begged Finn for a turn with the pricing gun.
cmcallister@durangoherald.com
More information
For more about the Kidz 2 Kidz Flea Market, call 403-8697 or visit durangotoydepot.com/event/kidz-2-kidz-flea-market.html.
