Let’s be honest. Some of our kids’ stuffed animals will be cherished forever and passed down to future generations. Others will likely be given away, sold at a garage sale or tossed in the trash when no one is looking. According to a 2023 article in the Yale Environment Review, 80 percent of toys end up in the landfill.
Kate Niemczyk is betting that the old adage is true: One family’s trash is another’s treasure. Her startup, the Bunny Bin, accepts donated stuffies, fixes them up and finds them new homes. Not only does her approach keep those toys out of the waste stream, it also offers gift givers a more affordable and environmentally conscious option than buying something new from Amazon.
Niemczyk, 39, grew up in Woodstock; she came up with the idea after being laid off from her producer gig at NBC’s “Today” show in 2023 and moving back to Vermont. She developed the concept with help from mentors at SCORE New Hampshire & Vermont and the business “actuator” program at the Black River Innovation Campus in Springfield.
The Bunny Bin launched with a booth at the artisan market during Woodstock’s Wassail Weekend in December. Niemczyk accepted donations and sold 25 stuffies she’d already repaired, bringing in about $420. Once word got out that she was seeking stuffed animals, they started to appear — from parents and grandparents cleaning out the attic, from adults ready to downsize.
“One woman said, ‘I’m 50 years old, and it’s time to get rid of my stuffies,’” Niemczyk said. “People frequently tell me, ‘I just can’t deal with all this stuff.’”
A January segment on WCAX-TV sent more donations her way. After just a couple of months in business, she’s housing around 200 stuffies of all sizes in her stuffed-animal sanctuary, aka her Woodstock home.
After Niemczyk receives an animal, she puts it in a chest freezer for 72 hours — the “hibernation stage,” she quipped — to kill any bugs. Then she washes and repairs it, fixing loose seams and replacing buttons or eyes that have fallen off. She also adds a rescue certificate that describes the toy’s previous life or imagines a past for animals that came to her without a pedigree. The storytelling aspect is one of the things that makes her project endearing and unique.
For example, she recently accepted a batch of stuffies from a third-grade class at Orchard School in South Burlington whose teacher had seen the WCAX segment. The teacher had each student select a toy to donate and write a biography for it. One came from a girl who had accompanied her parents to a party for adults where she won a door prize — a stuffed gopher named “Tequila.” She renamed it “Gary,” and it’s now part of Niemczyk’s inventory.
“I obviously am not interested in taking toys from kids,” Niemczyk clarified. But when a child is done playing with a stuffed animal and decides to give it away, “it’s heartwarming and really selfless,” she said.
To sell the toys, she looks up the item’s value online and tries to price it competitively. Those that have been out of circulation for many years are made of higher-quality materials, she noted. So Gary the gopher is priced at $18, and some sell for just $5, while a 1968 Snoopy doll — built to last — went for $40 during Wassail Weekend.
Niemczyk will offer her stuffies for online sale soon, and she hopes to do more markets this summer. Here’s a peek at some items from her collection.
Learn how to purchase or donate stuffed animals at thebunnybin.com.
Clyde
Oatmeal
Gary (formerly Tequila)
The original print version of this article was headlined “Rescued Animals | A new Woodstock business saves stuffies from the landfill”
This article appears in Kids VT Money Issue • 2026.
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