Each year, thousands of children are diagnosed with muscular dystrophy in Puerto Rico. This progressive disease damages and weakens muscles over time. It makes some of the activities kids love doing, like running, swimming and playing with their toys, highly difficult or even impossible.

To help them get the necessary medical instruments they need, The Muscular Dystrophy Association created a platform that finds a better use for the toys these children can no longer play with called TheGrandToyStore.com. This is an online store where kids with muscular dystrophy can sell the toys they are no longer able to use due to their condition, so they can get the things they need to keep enjoying life!

The Grand Toy Store isn't about selling toys for children; it’s about showing how each donation can positively affect the life of a child with muscular dystrophy. It’s about teaching people about the different types of muscular diseases, how it affects each person, the symptoms, the progressions and more. And most importantly, it’s about giving kids with this disease the chance to live life to the fullest. No other MDA campaign had done this before.

The Grand Toy Store website was launched in April 2015 through a mixed media campaign, from print and billboards, to ambient and digital efforts, and will continue being active until June.

Since The Grand Toy Store’s opening, *2,017 toys have been sold thanks to people’s donations. MDA’s Orientation Hotline reported a 9% increase in calls. Visits to MDA’s local website (prmda.org) were up by 12% and Facebook Likes by 13%.

*The grand total results are yet to be final since the campaign is set to end June 30th.