Last year, Vivian Lord made a discovery she was not too happy about. The seven-year-old was playing with those green plastic Army soldiers and realized none of them were women. She decided to write a letter to the company that makes them, BMC Toys, to ask why there are no female soldiers. And her letter caught the attention of Jeff Imel, the president of the company.
Imel says he had been thinking about launching female Army figurines, but didn’t know if there was much demand for them. But after getting the second-grader’s request, he decided to make it happen. His hope was to have the new toys available to the public at Christmas, but shipping delays caused by the pandemic have pushed back the launch. So Imel sent a special early Christmas present to Vivian – two bags of plastic Army women soldiers.
“Vivian was very excited to have the toy in hand,” explains her mom, Brittany. “She is very happy and thankful that her dream for toy equality came true.” And Imel says the toys are already an extremely popular pre-order, so other kids have been waiting for the female soldiers, too. He adds that it’s “incredibly gratifying to see a project I had been thinking about for years finally come to life when VIvian opened her package of Plastic Army Women.”
Source: Good Morning America