The concept of a surprise toy store visit has long been a popular highlight of the foundation’s annual 4 day magical trip to Disney World, organized for children with cancer aged from 4 to 21. Ohr Meir used to go to a Toys-R-Us store in Orlando Florida, and the store used to open an hour early to grant a private shopping experience for the children.

Established by his parents Ari & Idy Friedman in 1994 in memory of 10 year old Meir Friedman’s loss to leukemia, the foundations flagship trip is their annual Orlando trip to the Disney and Universal theme parks. This 4 day trip is jam packed with one magical surprise after another including visiting four theme parks, concerts, private fireworks shows, themed dinners, a magical costume ball (which includes visits from all the popular Disney characters), and surprise stop overs at Dave and Busters – and previously, Toys R Us.

Remember the Children?

As others talked about Black Friday, online competition and watching KB Toys fighting Family Dollar over vacant retail space, the non-profit Ohr Meir foundation was deep in planning.

In the past, the Millennia Mall branch of Toys-R-Us in Orlando always went above and beyond the call of duty, helping Ohr Meir to spring a crazy fun surprise-party in their store. The awe-struck children could keep the toys they picked up to a certain dollar value, all paid for by Ohr Meir- in a colorful, fun-filled frenzy of music, dancing, craziness and genuine children’s laughter.

This year the Millennia Toys-R-Us store, like 700 others, was bankrupt, the gray shutters pulled down and padlocked.

“The toy-store experience was part of this dream-making magic, part of this energy. They had these kids, some in-between chemo treatments, literally dancing in the aisles. How to reproduce that? We couldn’t exactly take these sick kids to Amazon.com” said Meir’s older brother, Steven Friedman, now 36. “The toy store experience is vital to their memories, to give these kids their childhood back.”

“Dreams Happen” – The Magical Toy Store is created

The foundations motto is “Dreams happen“. It is famous for magical mind blowing surprises for children, and refused to give up. With just weeks to go before this year’s trip, they started planning another crazy magical event.

“What if we could somehow re-open the store, just for one day…and make it bigger and better than any Toys R Us visit could ever be?! And when we do something on this trip for these amazing kids- we do it in a top notch over the top way so that the children are just blown away. Our goal with this toy store was no different.” said Friedman.

On Monday the 26th of November 46 children with cancer got to experience the most amazing toy store event ever, just half a mile from the gates of Disney World. The store was called, appropriately, the ‘Magical Toy Store’. Ohr Meir took the ballroom of their hotel and transformed it – complete with retail gondola shelving, checkout counters, shopping carts, registers, and “employees”.

The entire staff of the old Toys R Us store in Orlando Florida, including recent manager Victor Perez and previous manager John Locke, all volunteered to take an off-day from their new employment to serve the children. They were the store’s “employees” handling the announcements and helping to check the children out after they completed their shopping.

A new toy store needs toys – and toys it had! Thousands of them! The toys were displayed in over 800 feet of shelving in a magnificent toy store display. Most of the toys were donated by the toy companies themselves, with the remainder sponsored by private individuals. There was also a sports apparel section sponsored by Outer Stuff, watches sponsored by Invicta and $50 online gift cards provided by Puma. Media company Entertainment One from the UK sent their ever-popular Peppa Pig and PJ Masks characters to greet and take photos with the kids as they shopped.

The children burst through the doors with incredible energy and excitement as they grabbed toys off the shelves and filled their carts as high as the sky.

Ohr Meir gave each child a fixed amount they could spend in the store. The magical toy store also had flash sales every few minutes in different aisles including buy one free toy get one free toy FREE.

Each child went home with a wagon full of toys. The children’s checkout receipt, with the magical toy store logo printed on top- had the value of all the toys they picked, followed by – “you pay $0”. One kid even ripped up her receipt with a big smile on her face.

How do we get home all these toys?

Ohr Meir provided 2 extra expandable suitcases for each child and also shipped boxes of their toys directly to each kids home (courtesy of Silver Streak Logistics.)

The Orlando Trip

The magical toy store event is just one small part of the four day magical Orlando trip for kids with cancer. The children come from across the United States and Canada and are paired 1-1 with a counselor.

The trip is run by the Friedman family and a whole bunch of volunteers known as the Ohr Meir Crew. Everyone on this trip from counselors to crew members are volunteers. The crew includes doctors, lawyers, and business people that all take a few days off from their regular jobs- to handle all sorts of different responsibilities and to make magic happen. They all work tirelessly behind the scenes to make sure that everything goes off seamlessly and magically.

As one crew member put it last night as the trip was coming to a close:

“If happiness is the best medicine, then Orlando was just the place where these sick kids received the strongest dose possible.”

We all agree.

ABOUT OHR MEIR – The Ohr Meir Foundation, a 501(c) 3 non for profit organization is dedicated to bringing a feeling of joy and hope to sick children by giving them a break from their rigorous treatment schedules with magical trips.

There is nothing in the world like this Orlando Trip – as its run by a team of all volunteers. No one is paid on Ohr Meir’s trips. It’s all heart and sweat…followed by smiles and tears. That includes, the doctors, Nurses, chef, lighting/support crew and videographers (Ohr Meir sends each kid home with a fully edited video of their trip as well as a full album of pictures of themselves on the trip).

The Ohr Meir Foundation has absolutely NO OVERHEAD COSTS, and 100% of every dollar goes directly to the children. So although they shower the children with a VIP fantasy trip- they are careful with how they spend the money.

You can visit www.ohrmeir.org to see pictures from previous trips and activities.

To donate online please go to http://ohrmeir.org/donate/

or send a check to

Ohr Meir Foundation Inc
3023 Avenue J
Brooklyn NY 11210