Whether it be people with a history of incarceration or people with disabilities, Ithaca Toys aims to create job opportunities for challenged individuals.

To accomplish this, we have been fortunate to work with Challenge Workforce Solutions and subcontract a talented, hard working team of individuals. Challenge is a non-profit committed to creating pathways to employment for people with disabilities and barriers to work. With their help, we have been able to produce hundreds of CoasterBLOX, NumberBLOX, and BLOX.

Recently, we onboarded Mike as our first permanent production employee and are working closely with Challenge to ensure that we provide the tools necessary for success. With Challenge acting as an employment specialist, we look forward to continuing production with Mike’s help and positively impacting our community through workforce development.

In addition to locally-sourcing wood for our products, Ithaca Toys engages in circular economy practices for the purpose of reducing our waste.

Our production process creates two primary forms of waste: wood scraps and sawdust. We have developed a method to repurpose our wood scraps to create birdhouses to donate to our local community. Moreover, we have given away any excess wood as kindling to local state parks.

Shaving off wood to get the smooth edges and engraved images necessary for our products generates large amounts of sawdust. To put that waste to use, we have used the sawdust to insulate our birdhouses as well as create more composting material.