Sharing Built From the Kid Up

Feel great today about giving away yesterday’s toys, and don’t feel guilty about buying new ones. At Unless Kids there’s always space for more.

The heart of every community isn’t just the playground, community center, or school. It’s the kids — the next generation of playful wanderers who are in search of fun ways to share. At Unless Kids, we have a bold vision to change the way we sustain our communities through rethinking the way kids play. And if the tools for play are toys, we want to make them more available in our communities, more meaningful through shared play, and less wasteful through circularity.

Unless Kids was started by parents who experienced the stress of the chaotic clutter of the playroom and the anxiety of having to throw a toy away. Luckily, these parents had also discovered the circular economy — a system for reducing waste and increasing joy. Unlike the take, make and trash model of how we’re used to buying toys, Unless Kids was built to maintain the value of a toy for as long as possible so more kids can enjoy them for longer while protecting the planet.

Our name was inspired by the famous line at the end of Dr. Seuss’s classic, The Lorax, when before the Lorax is spirited away, he leaves the word Unless on the stump of the very last Truffula Tree. As the Oncler reflects on what that word means, it becomes clear, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

We are people who deeply care, and we’re proud to bring parents and kids who also deeply care a toy platform with a footprint as small as the kids who play with them.