EASTON, Pa. — What could be more exciting than a free 64-second shopping spree through America’s favorite crayon store?
Adding another 10 seconds to that run, of course — even if that might throw off the reference to Crayola's classic 64-color box set.
It doesn’t hurt that the yield accrued by three local kids was also matched and donated to Toys for Tots.
Tuesday evening saw 10-year-old Jocelyn Henry of Allentown, 8-year-old Ada McGinnis of Bethlehem, and 12-year-old Max Hoernlein of Phillipsburg dash through The Crayola Store at Crayola Experience Easton for the annual “64 Seconds of Color Shopping Spree” to kick off the holidays.
“We wanted all the activity sets, so they could be donated to my mom's high school students, [who are] special education [students]."Max Hoernlein, 64 Seconds of Color Shopping Spree participant
Each of the kids had entered a raffle during a trip to The Crayola Experience in the past few weeks, and all were rather surprised to find they had actually won.
Considering that this year marked the 10th anniversary of the event, organizers provided participants with an extra 10 seconds to add to their stashes.
Joining the trio of children on their mission were three Marines to hold onto their winnings, including Staff Sgt. Charlie Lusk, who partnered up with Hoernlein; Staff Sgt. Edward Aguirre, who paired with Henry; and Cpl. Edwin Milanes, who worked with McGinnis.
Aguirre, who has been in the Marine Corps for 15 years, said he has participated in Toys for Tots since 2014.
“We do it everywhere we go, and when we heard about [the event], we signed up, they told us to come here, and here we are,” Aguirre said with a smile.
Milanes said he recently moved to the Lehigh Valley, and when the request for signups came around, he was happy to add his name to the list.
“It gives me a little bit of pride, just because I know how it is to not get stuff like this. So it's great to be able to give out this type of stuff for these types of kids,” Milanes said.
Henry said she was “really excited” to participate in the shopping spree and aimed to get plenty of stuffed animals and coloring boards on Tuesday. Wearing a blue shirt — her favorite color is Mountain Blue — she added that she was thrilled to use her new supplies to create some special art.
“I paint a lot and draw. Usually, I draw and do cat mask designs. I have one of my own, so I like to draw them in my book, and then I just color it, and go to the next page and think about more drawings,” Henry said.
Prior to the start of the dash, each participant had five minutes to scope the scene and plot out their run for optimized shopping.
Dutiful Marines in their dress uniforms expertly followed behind their little partners, making their best efforts to effectively stack, squeeze, and balance an abundance of art supplies, toys, stuffed crayons and more.
And remember, those Marines had their work cut out for them, as anything that fell to the floor was out of the game.
Nevertheless, each team managed to procure hundreds of dollars of Crayola merchandise for themselves, and for the Lehigh and Northampton Toys for Tots chapters.
Hoernlein even went the extra mile, making a plan to use his own prize cache to help out some other people in need for the holidays.
“We wanted all the activity sets, so they could be donated to my mom's high school students, [who are] special education [students],” Hoernlein said.
“So we were mostly just going to focus on this left side here, because we only have 74 seconds, and we knew that if we just stay here, then we can get everything we wanted,” Hoernlein said, adding “It was one of the most fun days of my life, I really enjoyed it.”
Hoernlein credited his substantial yield of activity sets to his Marine partner Lusk.
Lusk said he got involved in Toys for Tots via Aguirre, who serves as a coordinator for the program. After he was told about the dash, he informed Aguirre that he “was all for it,” as he was a Toys for Tots recipient when he was a child as well.
While the pair originally aimed to use a blanket to build up a huge stockpile, that plan fell through. However, thanks to some substantial stacking skills, the duo was able to rack up nearly $1,000 in merchandise.
“It’s double good, because not only are they matching what he got, they’re also going to a good place anyway, so it worked out good,” Lusk said.
Note: Ada McGinnis is naturally quite shy, and as such, declined to participate in an interview.
