Charlie Cooley’s obituary should’ve been in The New York Times. Heck … it should’ve been in every legacy media outlet.*
Charlie Cooley retired started an outfit called The Happy Factory almost 20 years ago.
The Happy Factory did one thing: hand make wooden toys — cars, trucks, planes — and give them away to poor kids around the world.
Over a million free wooden toys …
I first found out about The Happy Factory 10 years ago this week: a working wooden scoop loader was being raffled off at a rodeo. The then 2-year old vXboy sat on it, and wanted it badly. We didn’t win the raffle. I made enquiries and found out after a brief talk with Charlie that you couldn’t buy or even order items from The Happy Factory — it was all strictly free, and you had to be in need.
Also, about 6 years ago, I posted here at vX about how the TV show Three Wishes came to my town to make grants: one went to The Happy Factory.
* The internet shows it in just two: The St. George Spectrum, and The Deseret News.
