Beanie Babies

Each year Operation Gratitude receives thousands of Beanie Babies from grateful Americans across the country, and one goes in every single Care Package we send to service members deployed around the world.

We made Beanie Babies a signature item in our Care Packages not only because they bring smiles to the faces of our deployed troops, but also because they help American forces build goodwill around the world.

This is abundantly clear in the words of a young Marine Lance Corporal who wrote to us.

“I am one of the many Marines that you sent a Care Package. I want to thank each and every one of you for supporting us and for letting us know how much people support us back at home. I live with 17 Marines and Sailors in one room. Everyone got a package and everyone loved it, especially the cookies and beanie babies. The cookies are excellent and the beanie babies help us out a lot with the local kids. We give them candy and toys and they give us the location for IEDs. Once again, thank you for everything and for all the hard work that you put into the package.”

We heard similar stories from Soldiers, Marines, Airmen and Sailors who built goodwill with children in the Middle East, Africa and ports all over the world through the Beanie Babies our volunteers have donated.

Do you have a collection of Beanie Babies, or small plush toys like Webkinz or Burt’s Bears, and are wondering what to do with them? Send them to us and we will put them in the Care Packages we send to deployed Troops!

OR

Purchase Beanie Babies, Webkinz or other plush toys, or host a collection drive for new or gently used ones at your workplace, neighborhood or school.

Donate Your Beanie Babies

A Gallery

FAQs

Yes! Please be sure to fill out a Donor Form and include a form in each of your boxes/bags/envelopes!

All donations must be shipped or delivered to our main facility in Chatsworth, CA. We accept donations at our facility Monday–Friday from 9 am to 3:30 pm.

If you are making a large donation, you will need to coordinate the drop off with our staff.

Our address is:
Operation Gratitude
19748 Dearborn St
Chatsworth, CA 91311

Please be sure to fill out a Donor Form and include a form in each of your boxes!

A good cost-effective way to ship your items can be a flat rate box from the post office. You can pick up the boxes for free at your local post office or order them online from the post office website and they will be shipped to you at no cost. We have created a special shipping document to walk you through the steps of using the post office website to order supplies and print postage. You can also search the web for “Pirate Ship” for discounted USPS postage.

You are welcome to use any shipper you would like including UPS, FedEx, DHL, etc. based on the best cost you can find.

One suggestion to save you both space in your box and on the cost of shipping is vacuum sealing your items in your shipping box. To do this, place any type of trash bag in your box, neatly put your beanies in the box inside the bag. Vacuum the air out by tightly wrapping the bag around your vacuum hose and turning on your vacuum. Once the air is out, keep your vacuum running and spin the bag so that you can hold the air out as you tie off the bag with a piece of twine or yarn. Be sure to use extra tape on the box.

If you have a very large collection (more than 200) you may want to consider shipping them via freight on a pallet which can cut your cost considerably. You can get a quote online through companies like “Freight Quote”.