Though we usually feature our Flickr photogs here, this one was too good to pass up. This morning at National Geographic downtown, folks from their Kids magazine went for broke — setting the Guinness World Record for number of stuffed animals gathered in one place. Two-thousand, three hundred and four, to be exact. Preciousness rose to new highs in the room lined on every wall with teddy bears and smiling gorillas, as the record verification form was signed, naturally, by the largest character in the room — Slapshot, the Washington Capitals’ mascot.

The project, started by the magazine four months ago, asked kids to send in new stuffed animals and encouraged youth organizations, troops, families, and individual kids to join the quest. The adorably sport-coated Shawn McNair, a second grader from New York, was given a special award for putting together a campaign at his school that collected 237 animals to send in. After the ceremony this morning, the pile of brand-new button-nosed toys were donated to the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves as part of the Toys for Tots program.

Click here for some of the local drop off centers for the Toys for Tots program; you can also bring them to Union Station at the Old Town Trolley Desk until Dec. 20 and the Truman Building for the State Department until Dec. 18. Feel free to leave other locations in the comments.

Photo courtesy of the National Geographic Society.

Filed Under: animals, capitals, comments, downtown, flickr, Guinness World Record, Guinness World Records, kids, marine corps, national geographic, National Geographic Society, nationalgeographic, new york, old town, photos, state department, statedepartment, union station, washington, washington capitals, washingtoncapitals, world records,