Adaptable toys for kids

Bill Memberg, president of RePlay for Kids, had just finished his master’s degree in biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University when he saw an ad in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities was looking for someone to fix broken toys. 

“I was interested in helping, so I signed up, picked up a box of toys to fix, and a month later picked up another box,” Bill says. “These were toys with mechanisms inside that didn’t work anymore. It was too expensive for the CCBDD to purchase new toys, so it saved them money and felt good to help.”

After volunteering his expertise for a few months, Bill’s coworkers and fellow engineers at his day job offered their help. Bill was soon contacted by other agencies like United Cerebral Palsy about not just fixing toys but also adapting them to make them easier for children with disabilities to operate. Soon after, RePlay for Kids was born. 

“There are kids in schools with cerebral palsy and other disabilities who can’t play with the toys,” Bill says. “At our RePlay for Kids Creative Space in Solon, volunteers come to the workshop and repair and adapt a wide variety of toys, making them accessible for all kids so they can play, learn and interact with others.”

Any agencies providing services for kids with disabilities, schools and hospitals can access these adapted toys free of charge through RePlay for Kids. Families are asked to go through their school or therapist for adapted toys to ensure the best match for the child. 

Always looking for volunteers, RePlay for Kids offers instruction and how-to videos with no experience necessary. And if you can’t make it to the workshop, staff members will come to your business or school for a toy-adapting workshop. 

“It’s a great team-building activity, and a great way to teach STEM basics to students,” Bill says. “It involves opening the toy and learning how to solder wiring so appropriate switches can be added depending on the child’s capabilities.”

Bill tells the story of a child at Cleveland Sight Center who was blind, deaf and non-verbal along with having significant developmental delays.

“We installed a switch where she could reach out and lightly press a pad, and she responded to the toy,” Bill says. “She learned the cause-and-effect relationship that her therapists were searching for a way to teach her. It changed the way they do things.”

Bill also describes how riding toys are adapted for disabled children not big enough for wheelchairs but with an adapted hand switch instead of foot pedals can operate the cars.

“These children are able to experience their environment and play with others,” Bill says. “It helps to integrate classroom play and that’s beneficial to all children.” 

There are also a variety of switches that are commercially available, including plate switches, head switches and sip-and-puff switches, which can plug into the adapted toys. 



Volunteers and individual and corporate donations allow RePlay for Kids to do even more in this community and beyond because every child deserves to experience the benefits and the joy of play.

RePlay for Kids Creative Space workshop is located at 6190 Cochran Rd. E, in Solon. For information on how you can help, visit the website ReplayForKids.org for details and a schedule of upcoming events.