At Lilac City Comicon 2019, I had someone come to my table. He paid the adoption price for a costumed penguin and asked me to find a good home for one of our penguins. It was hard to do so because all of the children I saw after that had brothers and sisters. If I gave one child a penguin, I would need to give all the children a penguin. Since I only had one pay-it-forward penguin, I had to use my patience and wait for the right moment.

A girl in pink came to our table with her friend and loved our penguins. She asked about the adoption prices, touched the penguins and sighed. She left without a penguin. I kept watching the children go by. Some just ran by the table without stopping. Others glanced at the table but kept moving. Parents wrangled their kids away from looking at the penguins.

If we would have had a pay-it-forward penguin on the first day of Lilac City Comicon, I know exactly who would have gotten it. A little girl loved our penguins so much, she cried when her dad said she couldn’t have one. I felt bad for the father. He eventually bought Lucky at a discount, but she didn’t want a tiny penguin. She wanted a regular-sized penguin she could love. I offered to take Lucky back, but the dad declined. We can’t go back and change the past.

The girl in pink came back to our table and asked which of the penguins were $25. I pointed at our two penguins without costumes, and she pulled out her money. Then I said that we had a pay-it-forward penguin, so she could choose any penguin she wanted. Her eyes lit up, she started laughing, and she chose Flopsy Penguin dressed in her pink bunny outfit.

Both Jenya and I would love to give every child we see one of our penguins. (Some adults need them, too.) It’s just not financially feasible.

Just recently, one of the people who has already adopted a penguin from us asked if it were possible to pay a penguin forward. Brilliant! If you want to pay the adoption process of a penguin and find someone who will love it, we will do so. Our next scheduled event is at Salem Holiday Market in Oregon; we’d love to be able to give away some penguins there! All you have to do is go to our pay-it-forward page and pay the adoption fee. You don’t even have to worry about shipping and handling!