Mysterious Donation of 75,000 Minion Dolls for School, Valued at Rp8.9 Billion

Dream - A mysterious donor has donated Minion Beanie Babies dolls worth US$600,000 or Rp8.97 billion (exchange rate Rp14,900) to a school in Los Angeles, United States. Until now, the identity of the donor remains a question mark.

According to Insider, a total of nearly 75,000 dolls were sent. The delivery was made over three years, starting when 11 semi-trucks arrived carrying toys through the Shelter Partnership organization.

However, the school is still unsure what to do with the dolls, as the quantity is not enough to distribute.

According to the 2021-2022 academic records, there are 519,586 registered students in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), with over 275,000 in pre-kindergarten to grade 6.

Jennifer Marquez, senior director of product donations for Shelter Partnership, told local media LAist that the nonprofit organization received a phone call from Chicago in 2020.

Someone asked if Shelter Partnership could accept 600 pallet shipments.

"A company may have something that is out of season or maybe something will expire in six months or they have too much stock and they turn to Shelter Partnership," Marquez told LAist.

Slowly, as distributed by Shelter Partnership, the toys dwindled from 600 pallets worth of toys to 70 pallets received by LAUSD in December last year.

Almost 75,000 toys worth nearly $600,000, according to internal documents from LAUSD shared with Insider.

A spokesperson for Los Angeles Unified told Insider in an email statement that the donated items would be used by the schools to "support their student programs."

"Items were donated to schools until the inventory ran out," the spokesperson added, but did not answer questions about how the toys would be distributed among LAUSD students or whether this type of mass donation is typically accepted by the district.

It is still unclear whether any toys have been distributed to students so far or will be kept for future undetermined use.

Shelter Partnership is a nonprofit organization that serves homeless shelters and food banks with donations from various manufacturers, film studios, and other groups that have excess items they want to donate.

Representatives from Shelter Partnership have not yet responded to comment requests from Insider. (x)