How Philly Trinket Trove is inspiring joy, one small item at a time

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Elana Flehinger wants to spread joy, with a waterproof junction box on the corner of 15th and South Street.

Since she put it up last September, Philly Trinket Trove has been up on a street sign outside of Sonny’s Cocktail Joint in Graduate Hospital, offering people the chance to swap small toys, stickers, tchotchkes, curios, knick-knacks and whatever items of whimsy can fit on its shelves and in its pouches.

Flehinger said it warms her heart seeing people interacting with the box. 

“My favorite thing is when I’ll be walking by … and I’ll see a parent with their child actually looking in the box and picking out what to trade, and they’ve brought something to trade,” she said. “Teaching them the golden rule and things like that.”

Flehinger is a lawyer and neighborhood resident. She’s also an avid crafter and runner, training for her sixth marathon. While running races in the Big Apple to qualify for the New York City Marathon, her social media algorithm showed her posts about “duck libraries” —metal boxes around the city where you could take and leave plastic ducks. This led her down a rabbit hole about people who build ornate trade boxes and little free libraries, and sometimes even the posts for them.

“I loved the idea, but didn’t really have the space or time or energy to make one,” she said. “So I went online … and I found little waterproof boxes. I kind of scouted the area while I was walking my dog, found the right spot for it and kind of guerilla put it up in the middle of the night.”

Since it went up, it’s been regularly replenished by passersby from near and far. Emilia Zloch, a Penn State student visiting Philly during spring break, stopped by the box between her visit to the Magic Gardens and a then-undecided lunch spot. She had seen posts about it on her TikTok feed. She left a pearl chain and took a Diet Coke sticker, the latter probably made by Flehinger.

“It’s a very cute idea,” Zloch said after making her trade.

Flehinger regularly visits the box and replenishes it with whatever craft she’s currently making (it’s currently little Philly soft pretzels) and Troll doll toys. She said some of the standout items she’s taken from the box herself have been a miniature gumball machine and a statue of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who her dog — Ruth Bader Ginsbark — is named after.

The trinket trove has also built up thousands of followers on Instagram and TikTok. There are also currently about five “stewards for the box” who help Flehinger keep it tidy and stocked.

She’s also joined a group chat of around 29 other people already running trinket exchanges around the country. A trinket tribe, if you will.

Flehinger has no plans to put up more boxes around the city. And she doesn’t really need to — others are already doing it. Boxes have popped up:

• outside Queen & Rook Game Cafe,
• next to the Grape in Manayunk,
• as well as by the South Philly stadiums,
• in West Philly,
• and Brewerytown, with more coming in Fishtown, Germantown, Mount Airy, Roxborough and one with the location still to be decided. 

We have to — okay, just want to — mention that there’s been a Shrek-themed box in South Philly for quite a while now.

Flehinger says she and the creator behind Manayunk’s box are in the early stages of designing a digital passport to help keep track of all the trinket troves in the area.

Aside from the occasional sticker on the box, it hasn’t suffered much vandalism, Flehinger said. It was temporarily knocked down after some overexuberant parking by a delivery truck, but a staff member at Sonny’s kept it safe until Flehinger could repair and repost it.

Though probably well-intentioned, some people have left condoms, Narcan and (unused) tampons. Flehinger said she appreciates that people are trying to help the community, but said there are other places that provide those resources. The box is for joy.

“I’m not making money on this, aside from the quarters that people occasionally leave in the box when they don’t have a trinket to trade — which we don’t really encourage,” she joked. “We just want to make people happy. There’s some awful things going on in the world and it’s little moments of joy that kind of keep you going.”