Organization gives away toys to promote positivity in areas prone to violent crime - WBRZ

BATON ROUGE – A recent spike in murders in Baton Rouge has one organization looking to start the new year in a more positive way.

An organization called 'Let It Slide' gave away toys to kids in high-crime areas. Their goal is to switch the narrative, that violence is not the only option.

"Nobody is going to change our community but us, this is something that we have to change for ourselves,” said Andre Henderson, one of the ‘Let It Slide’ organizers. “In our community there is a narrative out there that black men are stealers, dealers and killers and we need to change that narrative to we're the healers, builders and protectors of our community.”

The organization's name stands for stop letting intense drama escalate.

“Murder, it doesn't just happen. It starts with a small situation. There’s a saying I say: I would rather pull a seed out of the ground than cut down a tree. If you cut down a tree you need multiple things and people to deal with it so we're just going to let is slide,” said Reggie Morgan, another organizer.

Though offering toys won't stop all of the violence, the group says it's a start. A start to doing things for each other, not against.

“All of it is just foolishness at the end of the day. We have to change our mindset and get out of foolishness and get to the positive,” Henderson said.

The group says some music is a big contributor to the negativity in the community. So they're also looking to reward someone with a record label to make music with a positive message.

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Data suggests retailers 'over purchased' L.O.L. Surprise! toys - New York Post

The most popular toy on the market this holiday season hasn’t been flying off the shelves as fast as retailers expected, according to new data.

Thousands of L.O.L. Surprise! toys — which children have been collecting en masse since they were introduced in 2016 — are being shipped to industrial warehouses instead of to children’s homes by large retail clients like Walmart, Target and Costco, according to B-Stock Solutions, which helps retailers auction off excess inventory.

Between Nov. 30 and Dec. 30, the tiny dolls made up 3 percent of the surplus merchandise B-Stock Solutions received from retail clients — up 450 percent over the same period a year ago, B-Stock spokesperson Melissa Gieringer told The Post.

The returns are likely the result of “over purchasing” by retailers, Gieringer explained. “This year our warehouse and big-box store clients were more aggressive about pulling overstock early,” she said, referring to retailers’ practice of removing from shelves items that didn’t sell.

But Isaac Larian, the colorful head of MGA Entertainment, the LA-based company behind L.O.L. Surprise! and Bratz dolls, blasted any suggestion that demand for his latest hit toy is anything but through the roof.

MGA Entertainment “left $200 million of sales” on the table because the toymaker was unable to keep up with all retailers’ demand, Larian said of 2019 sales.

He’s projecting that the L.O.L. franchise will grow by another 25 percent in 2020 as it rolls out new versions of the dolls, which helped to fuel the “unboxing” trend, whereby toys are only revealed after the packaging is opened — often through elaborate unveilings seen social media websites.

“Not only aren’t we seeing any demand for L.O.L. diminishing for 2020, L.O.L. shelf space will grow dramatically at all big-box retailers in 2020,” Larian told The Post in an email.

The outspoken toy mogul — who tried to buy Toys ‘R’ Us out of bankruptcy and has tried to acquire archrival Mattel only to be rebuffed by both companies — threatened to sue B-Stock Solutions for its “bogus” and “irresponsible” report after being contacted by The Post.

“I totally understand why [MGA would] dispute” the data, Gieringer said, “given the popularity of the dolls. But our data does show a substantial uptick in the L.O.L. merchandise over last year.”

Shortly after its launch in 2017, L.O.L. Surprise! was ranked the top-selling toy by retail tracker NPD Group, and again in 2018. The research firm is expected to release its 2019 ranking this month.

In spite of B-Stock’s finding, Jim Silver, president of toy review website TTPM, predicts the dolls will reign atop the toy charts once again for 2019.

“L.O.L. was the No. 1 brand in the toy industry in 2019, followed by Barbie and Marvel Avengers,” Silver said. “While it might not have been as big as [2018], it’s still over $1 billion sold in 2019,” he added.

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