Christmas comes early at Red Cross Children's Hospital

The collection was the brainchild of afternoon drive jock Lee Downs, who started the ball rolling with a similar project last year. This year the P4 West End Toy Run was bigger and better than before, with P4 listeners and West End clients really opening their hearts to the kids. The entire afternoon drive team including sports presenter Mark Marshall, news anchor Lukhanyo Calata and traffic presenter Skyler, joined Lee in an outside broadcast from the popular Rylands club, entertaining the crowds who "paid" to enter by donating a toy.

Downs, otherwise known as the King of the Traffic Jam, says he was bowled over by the response. "It was amazing to see so many people responding to this idea - from our own P4 staff who made donations, to Galaxy/West End who started the collection off with 300 toys, to SAB Miller, who surprised all of us by arriving with a cheque for R20 000. We are extremely grateful to all of them for supporting this project, as well as to West End for hosting us. It was also good to see the event attracting even larger crowds than it did last year, which means the message is definitely getting out that this is the time to reach out to others, and especially to children in need."

Representatives of the station were proud to hand over the over-flowing boxes of toys to the hospital today, and they were gratefully received by Nasriena Talieta, director of the Friends of the Children's Hospital Association.

This is the second major project in support of the Red Cross Children's Hospital which P4 has staged this year - last month the station's first ever radiothon raised a staggering R200 000 for the Trauma Unit Appeal.

The photo above features a beaming Nasriena Talieta, director of the Friends of the Children's Hospital Association, receiving the toys collected by P4 104.9fm from traffic presenter Skyler and news anchor Lukhanyo Calata.