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ST. CLAIR SHORES — Don Paulus is retired, but he fills his time by making toys and donating them to hospitals, restaurants and many other places to put smiles on children’s faces.
Paulus, 82, said he started his toy making journey after he had cancer back in 1998. He had an operation to remove the cancer, survived and wanted to do something to give back to children.
“I wanted to give back now and thank God,” Paulus said. “It sounds a little crumby, but seriously, I wanted to thank God and do something for kids, you know. I love kids.”
He chose toy making because of his experience with engineering and designing.
“I got out of the Navy, got my degree, or associate’s degree in engineering and I worked for years designing stuff,” Paulus said. “And that’s why I got into this, and I love kids, I really do.”
The toys themselves are painted animals, sometimes a tank or a car, on a set of four wheels so children can roll it around on tables or the ground. He also makes trains consisting of five animals or train cars he sells for a little extra money. Paulus said he calls his toys “Timber Toys.” Each toy has a stamp on the bottom of it with the name.
He said the toys are made out of regular two-by-fours, two-by-sixes and two-by-eights, and he gets the materials from house construction sites.
“I go around wherever they’re building new houses and I say, ‘Hey, can I have your scrap wood,’ and 99% of the time they say, ‘Yeah, help yourself,’” Paulus said. “Because I show them what I do and they say, ‘Yeah, take it.’”
He finds houses under construction by driving around. He said he never goes into the house. He just pulls out in front where they’re piling the scraps.
He gives the scraps accumulated from the toys to others as kindling for fires.
Paulus said he’s given to many places including Children’s Hospital of Michigan, Toys for Tots, Turning Point, Detroit Public Schools and others.
At the hospital, Paulus said they used to call him the “summertime Santa” because he would bring toys during the summer, whereas other people would only bring toys around the winter holidays.
“I would bring all my toys during the summer,” Paulus said. “And when it got to be Christmastime, I didn’t bring anything because everybody else brought stuff, and after Christmas, I bring my toys back again, so everybody got toys.”
Another place he’s given to is the restaurant that was known as Detroit’s Finest Coney Island. Waitresses give out the toys to kids eating at the restaurant to play with during their meal and they can take them home afterwards.
“I’ve been donating toys to them for years,” Paulus said. “And the kids come with their parents and the waitresses give them a toy, and they walk out and the waitress says, ‘Wait a minute, you can take the toy home,’ and the kids don’t know that, but the kids just love the toys.”
He said he keeps a bag filled with toys in his car in case the restaurant ever runs out.
“I usually carry an extra bag of toys in the car, like 20 of them at a time, and when I walk in and they only got one left, I bring the bag in, so kids all get toys all the time,” Paulus said.
The restaurant is changing over to a brunch spot, but Paulus said he will still be able to give them the toys.
Thank-you letters from various places, including Toys for Tots and Turning Point, hang on the walls of his workshop. Thank-you letters from customers of the restaurant as well as others are clipped to a clipboard. But Paulus said he doesn’t do what he does for praise and acknowledgement.
“I’m not looking for that, you know, but they do it and what can I say — I love it,” Paulus said. “If they’re happy, I’m happy, you know, and the kids are so happy.”
