Bill Memberg

 

Founder of Replay For Kids

 

by Evelyn Humphrey, crew 4

 

 

Did you know that Bill Memberg remakes toy for kids? Bill Memberg had a great idea to start Replay For Kids, an organization that adapts toys for kids with disabilities or who are paralyzed.

 

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Memberg was studying in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Case Western Reserve University in 1989. ”I had some free time and I saw an ad in the paper looking for someone to fix toys for children with disabilities,” he recalled. According to Memberg, kids with disabilities can operate toys by tilting their head in a wheelchair, blowing into a tube, twitching their eyebrows, or touching a more accessible switch.

 

Once Memberg fixed a box of toys for the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities, they asked him if he could adapt regular toys to make them usable by kids with disabilities. Eventually, in 1999, Memberg formed a nonprofit organization, Replay For Kids. He said he enjoys adapting toys because he likes to open them up and see what’s inside, but more importantly, he is helping kids. “Knowing that a child who wasn’t able to play with it before is able to play with it now is a good feeling to be able to do that,” he said.

 

Memberg helps people because kids who are paralyzed don't have toys like other kids who can go out and buy them. “There are companies that sell toys that are adapted, but they cost three to five times as much as the regular toys,” explained Memberg. As a nonprofit organization, Memberg said can be hard to raise money. At the job they have one part- time employee and one full time employee.

 

Memberg, 51, and his wife, who is a pediatrician, have a daughter. His daughter has down syndrome, but he had this organization before she was born. “Through her, I’ve met a lot of other kids who have disabilities,” he said. Memberg and his organization work with 26 agencies in nine counties, all in Northeast Ohio.  

 

Memberg hopes in the future that Replay for Kids will be expanding through workshops at high schools and colleges. For example, his organization is doing a workshop at MC2 STEM High School in June. They do one workshop a week, and they did 54 workshops the last year. In 2-3 hours Replay For Kids shows volunteers how to adapt the toys. They bring the tools and the parts and the volunteers to make the toys. Over the past few years they have saved up the toys from all of the workshop during the last year. In December, the representatives from the agencies like therapists and nurses come and pick the right toys that are appropriate for the kids and for their age.

 

When Memberg bring the toys to the kids and when they get them, they are excited because they never had toys that they could make do different things. Replay for Kids is in his house, and they do their workshops in places like Case Western Reserve University. If someone gave Memberg’s organization one million dollars, he would expand his company so he can have his own space for workshops. Since 2007, Replay for Kids has made 4,737 adaptations to toys for different organizations.

 

Memberg’s advice is not to let someone tell you what your career should be. Instead, he said to find what you love doing, then find a career that allows you to do that. “This may mean inventing the career if it doesn't already exist,” he said. “If you can get paid to do what you enjoy doing, you'll want to do your best and you`ll look forward to going work each day.”