CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — It’s not Christmas yet, but at one house in Flour Bluff, the boxes are already piling up.
John and Cheryl Navar have turned their fireplace into a storage space for dozens of Barbie dolls that keep showing up at their front door.
“So all the Target stuff is going to start showing up tomorrow along with anything that didn’t show up yet,” Navar said. But these aren’t just any Barbies. They’re the new type 1 diabetes (T1D) Barbie, complete with an insulin pump and glucose monitor.
“So when the Barbie came out… the diabetic Barbie came out, my wife was like, ‘oh my gosh I love this!,’” Navar said. Navar’s wife, Cheryl, loved the idea for a couple of reasons.
“Partially because she’s like a big-time avid Barbie collector,” Navar said. But more importantly because she is also a pediatric diabetic educator at Driscoll Children’s Hospital.
“She couldn’t take PTO today because she has a kid who’s just been diagnosed with diabetes and she’s in the room right now teaching the kids about all the different things they have to deal with,” Navar said. Those are the same children now in line to receive these Barbies as a special gift.
What started as a small idea quickly took off.
“I put it out to a small online Facebook community and some people that mean a lot to me. And I put it out to them and within 24 hours I had double the amount of dolls,” Navar said.
And the donations keep growing.
“It got big enough that we set up a Venmo and Cash App for donations and we broke them. There were too many donations and too big of numbers happening,” Navar said. The Navars later set up this GoFundMe to continue bringing more dolls to more kids.
“As we sit we can deliver several hundred to each of the major endo[crinology] clinics,” Navar said. So far, they’ve raised enough money and/or donations to give away about 1,000 Barbies. Their goal is to get these T1D Barbies to as many kids as possible.
But for John Navar, the mission is about more than toys.
“I think everyone can live by the second commandment. Love your neighbor as yourself. I think we’re at a point in our nation where we need to start dumping love in everywhere we can,” he said.
The couple hopes the movement inspires others and maybe even catches the attention of Mattel to create a T1D Ken doll as well.
John Navar tells KRIS6 News Mattel Children's Foundation reached out asking how they can officially support their cause.
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