We’re in sight of setting a new record this year! If we raise $5,000 in November, then we will top our record of $9,000! We need your help on Indiegogo where you can get a CfC souvenir or a commission!

We have raised almost $4,000 so far and there’s still one month left in the fundraiser. Take a look at some of the latest creations added to the store:

Hans Dendauw‘s Jabberwocky from Alice in Wonderland strikes a fearsome pose, but deep inside it just wants a loving new home.

This stagecoach and chariot by our fellow blogger Matija are detailed and visually appealing for their small size. You can see them featured in these two little scenes.

Due to popular demand, Paul Janowski and Republic Customs has contributed another set of chrome Iron Man and Silver Surfer in addition to new Steel and Colossus minifigs.

Lastly, Sean and Steph Mayo once again astounds me with their creative parts use in another brilliant microscale scene.

If you don’t see what you’re looking for, head over to our campaign on Indiegogo to get a commissioned creation or pick up a limited edition gift. If you’re not familiar with Indiegogo, it’s a crowd funding platform similar to Kickstarter but encompasses charities. Your help is much needed and appreciated!

We’ve raised over $3,000 in less than 2 weeks with still 1 month to go. Our sales are doing great, but we need your help on Indiegogo where you can get a CfC souvenir or a commission!

Check out our currently list of sold creations.

Thanks everyone for the amazing start!

We’re off to a great start and have raised $1,200 after the first day! Several new MOCs have been added to the store!

Our annual sale of custom Lego creations starts today! Take a look at the MOCs donated by fans and make a purchase to support giving Lego to underprivileged children during the holidays. Check back for new creations added until November 30th or donate a creation before November 15th.

Don’t see what you’re looking for at the store? Head over to Creations for Charity’s Indiegogo campaign to get a commissioned creation or pick up one of these cool gifts!

Join the crowd and take part in the Lego community’s annual tradition of giving back!

We are now accepting donations of Lego creations for our 2012 fundraiser! For those who haven’t heard of us, Creations for Charity raises money by selling these donated creations to buy Lego sets for underprivileged children. Anyone can donate a Lego creation from now until November 15. All you have to do is fill out a form and be prepared to ship the creation directly to the buyer. Starting this year, you can choose to be reimbursed for the cost of making your creation, so it’s easier to part with your bricks!

If this is your first time participating, you can learn more about us or read the FAQs.

This year we will be donating the Lego sets we buy to multiple cities in the US as well as in Croatia and Chile, thanks to our new distribution coordinators: Matija Grguric and Tomás López!

To refresh your memory, take a look at all the Lego sets we donated last year!

Follow us on our new Twitter page @C4CLego!

We have a Facebook page! Like us and feel free to post pictures of your MOC donations or what you bought from us. Our 2012 fundraiser is coming, stay tuned!

The third annual Creations for Charity ended with 418 Lego sets donated to the children, totaling in value of almost $9,200. The toys were given to Toys for Tots in Chicago, Grand Rapids, Los Angeles, and to Childrens Hospitals and Make-a-Wish in Dallas. Our fundraiser sold 66 custom Lego creations and raised $5,700.

This year the charity expanded to benefit children in multiple cities, and the results were greatly positive. Instead of giving a bunch of Lego to one place, we were able to distribute our donations across multiple locations. The tremendous help from the coordinators made this possible. The sales coordinators worked diligently to accept donations and run the store. I’m proud to say that there were no problems with any transactions they processed. Thanks to the distribution coordinators, we made efficient use of our funds to purchase almost $9,200 worth of Lego with less than $4,600 of spending money after paying fees from sales and the cost of making the keychain gifts.

As Creations for Charity goes into its fourth year, we will be expanding to countries outside the United States. Our new task will be to make sure the fundraiser can keep up with the rate of expansion. Despite this year’s sales being affected by the economy, I’m no less confident that we’ll see more success in the future. It’s a great cause and there’s no reason not to keep going.

At last, all this couldn’t have happened without the donors and buyers. You guys are the ones who make it possible for us to help the children. Thank you, and thanks again, for sparing a thought for others and sharing the gift of the brick.

I would like to start by saying – thank you to everyone who donated a creation to this event, as well as to those people who bought creations.  It is our love for this hobby that brings us all together, and has allowed us to share our favorite toys with those less privileged.

My experiences with Creations for Charity really began last year through selling my custom Minifigure creations.  Shortly after the conclusion of last years event, Nannan and I started having discussions in which he eventually asked me to join the Creations for Charity staff as an area distributor for the Chicago area.  I instantly knew that I wanted to help at the next level, and this year was wonderful! With that said – I LOVED being able to join in this years distribution process – purchasing LEGO on sale, and enjoying seeing the surprise and joy at the Toys for Tots dropoff point – when they were expecting a few LEGO sets, and received a LOT of LEGO sets!  I only wish I could see the eyes of all the children who receive the toys this christmas!

As all the area distributors were doing, I kept watching for good LEGO sales (particularly on Black Friday/Cyber Monday) in which I was able to stretch $1,125 for over $2,000 which included lots of LEGO games, as well as sets from “Stocking Stuffer” size to ultimate LEGO presents (LEGO Kingdoms Mill Village, Alien Conquest Alien Mothership, and Atlantis City of Atlantis) and everything in between for all ages (DUPLO LEGO to the larger more coveted sets).

These were dropped off at a Toys for Tots warehouse in St. Charles, Illinois (which will distribute to areas around the Chicago area).  The staff at the location were very excited for the amounts of LEGO that they were receiving, and very thankful as well!  The amount of LEGO dropped off completely filled the back of my car, as you can see in this photo:

Overall – I am amazed at the generosity of LEGO, and have been very thankful to be a part of Creations for Charity this year!  It really has been an amazing experience, and I can’t wait until tomorrow morning when kids from all over the country will be getting some amazing presents thanks to the generosity of everyone who was a part of the Creations for Charity event!  Thank you!

Don Wilson, our distribution coordinator in Grand Rapids, donated 98 Lego sets to Toys for Tots totaling in value of $1951 using $1150 of our funds (41% savings). Don was unable to write his wrap up post, but the donations were made in time and the children will be happy on Christmas.

The Spirit of Giving

As a kid, getting LEGO for Christmas was something I looked forward to with great joy and anticipation. I would spend a great deal of time staring at catalogs and wishing for anyone of them to be by the fireplace on Christmas mornings. On those mornings, opening a box of LEGO was a magical experience and memories that I will cherish for a life time.  I signed onto this charity because I hope to create the same feelings I felt in children who are going through a difficult time in their lives.

Buying

My strategy was to wait on a really good deal and pounce on it! The end result: I spent $1155 on $2429 (52% savings) worth of LEGO sets! I bought the bulk of the sets from Target and Meijer who were having 50%  and 60%  sale respectively.  Here’s a picture worth a thousand words 70 sets.

Distributing

In November we published a story about Justin, a brave young boy, who was fighting against a terrible type of cancer. His story is very touching and I wanted to do the same for thing for the other boys and girls who are ill.  So this year, I have distributed these sets to 3 different Children’s Hospital (Dallas, Plano, and Southlake) and Make-a-Wish HeadQuarters (Irving). I hope that these sets will provide comfort for the kids and I wish them all a speedy recovery.

Acknowledgements

“We hardly ever get LEGO donations because they’re so expensive but all the kids want them”, these were the responses I got from the representatives of the Children Hospitals. I thought I’d share that with you because your contributions have a made a meaningful impact on a child. With LEGO being so coveted at the hospital, you’ve no doubt created fond memories like those I’ve felt on Christmas mornings. Thank you for your selfless acts of generosity, you all have BIG hearts. I also want to thank my fellow CFC2011 teammates for their contributions, you guys/girls rock!

Thank you all and happy holidays!

Warm regards,

Ethan (Donut)

First off, thanks very much for all of your donations! We would not have been able to help out so many kids without your generosity. It was a pleasure to volunteer this year to help purchase and distribute the toys, and I hope to participate again in the future!

I kept my eyes peeled for sales almost constantly over the past several months and I think I found some great deals. I was able to stretch $1104.37 of your donations into buying $2808.27 worth of LEGO, and no shipping fees were incurred! It was fun taking inventory of the toys as they arrived and watching the pile grow. I must admit that I had no idea that LEGO made so many game sets; perhaps that’s why they were some of the best deals to be had this year!

This past weekend my girlfriend and I loaded up her car with all 179 LEGO sets to be donated. As you can see, the back seat and trunk were filled to capacity! When we were unloading toys it really seemed like a clown car with an unending supply of LEGO.

We dropped the toys off at a marine outpost in Bell, CA just off the 5 freeway that distributes to areas in Los Angeles county that have some of the greatest need. The marine on hand to receive the toys kindly helped to unload the car. As you can see from the first picture, he also gladly posed for a picture in dress uniform beside the toys. Included in the donation were 22 sets that I donated in addition to those purchased with Creations for Charity funds.

Thank you again for your extreme generosity. I look forward to seeing what we can do together next year!

Chris and I would like to thank everyone for their donations and purchases this year with Creations For Charity, and making it as successful as it was.  As the Sales Coordinators we had the privilege of listing new MOC’s and promoting the fundraiser as best as we could.  Creations For Charity had some amazing contributors this year, and hopefully next year there will be even more!  The response was very positive from everyone we’ve spoken with from the buyers to the donators, and the community in general.  Without the generosity of the buyers and donors Creations For Charity wouldn’t have been as successful as it was, and you can see some of the amazing contributions in the previous posts.

Last year, Creations For Charity raised over $9,000, and this year it was, unfortunately, considerably less, coming in at $5,700, a decrease of almost 40%.  The Global economy definitely had an impact on the fundraiser this year.  In speaking with other sellers on BrickLink from around the globe, looking at our own sales at Brick-A-Thon, and speaking to other businesses in our travels, many have noted that they’ve seen their sales down 35-45% on average.  While it’s disheartening to know that people haven’t had extra money to support such amazing causes like this one, it’s wonderful to be able to say that we’ve raised as much as we have and that there will be a lot of kids benefiting this year.

Some interesting numbers to share, 31 people from 8 countries donated 134 custom creations, of which 41 were donated by a single person! 39 different buyers purchased 66 items, which means we still had 68 items that were not sold even when prices have been lowered to their minimum allowed by the donors. Of the buyers, over 60% were US based, with a total of 8 countries represented in the other 40%.

It was a lot of fun being able to help this year as the Sales Coordinators, and we wish Creations For Charity a lot of success in the coming years.  Thank you all for your support this year and start thinking about MOC’s for 2012!

Tracy & Chris Dale