kmfm raise more than £19,000 for young people facing a difficult Christmas

This beats their previous year's record, their £10,000 goal, and doesn't include physical toy donations as well.  Finn Macdiarmid reports.

Transcript

00:00Now it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but for some people here in Kent that doesn't

00:04always look like how people might expect.

00:07For some it can be a difficult time, so four years ago KMFM started their annual Christmas

00:12Give a Gift campaign to try and make sure that no child would be without a toy in the

00:16holiday season.

00:18And this year they've broken their previous records and smashed their £10,000 target

00:22raising more than £19,000 plus at least £4,000 worth of toys all going to children who need

00:29them most.

00:30So we're talking about children that are unfortunately going to be in hospital over

00:33Christmas.

00:34That is obviously an incredibly challenging time and to be able to bring a smile to their

00:39face.

00:40We've been really lucky to meet children before who have previously spent time in hospital

00:45or parents who were in hospital when they were younger and they remember receiving a

00:50toy either through Give a Gift or similar campaigns and it had a wonderful positive impact on them.

00:57With the donations flooding in, Suez Recycling gave £1,000 towards the cause and went down

01:02for a tour of the studio.

01:04Now the Give a Gift campaign is all about giving children who might be having a difficult Christmas

01:09a reason to smile.

01:10And as you can see I'm sat inside the Suez Recycling bin lorry that they've brought down

01:14with them to the KMFM offices and they've also brought £1,000 more money to the campaign.

01:20They say it's something they try and do every year but that Give a Gift was particularly special.

01:24So our contract manager for Ashford, Ryan, heard about the Give a Gift campaign on the

01:29radio and gave me a call straight away to say that it was something that he really thought

01:33we should get involved with and we try and do something around Christmas every year anyway

01:36so it was the perfect timing and all our crews and staff across our Maidstone, Ashford and

01:41Swale depots were really excited to get involved and so we were really lucky to be able to raise

01:45the amount that we did.

01:46While many have donated money to KMFM's Just Giving page others have brought toys to be

01:51given out with one paramedic team bringing enough to fill most of their car.

01:56So last year at Paddock Wood my missus here did their own competition or their own fundraiser

02:03in the last two weeks of November and they raised about 40 gifts so this year she wanted

02:10to make sure that it was more successful and just trying to get as much toys as possible.

02:13So we created a competition between Medway, our EOC, our dispatches and our call takers

02:20and Paddock Wood to see who could get the most toys.

02:24The donations have now closed and so the process of sorting the toys and travelling across the

02:29county to make sure they find a home this Christmas can now start.

02:32Finn McDermott for KMTV in Medway.