For the second year the team at kmfm are carrying out their Give a Gift campaign, giving presents to children in need across the county.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00During this year's festive season, the KMFM team have been travelling around Kent as part of their Give-A-Gift campaign.
00:06Over the past few months, their listeners have donated money to provide sick children across the county with toys for Christmas.
00:12Most of the stuff that you see in these big bags, we bought from Smith, so this was the first year that we had a Just Giving page.
00:19Altogether, they will have visited 20 locations.
00:22Today the team went to the Shining Star in Raynham, a children's cancer charity.
00:26Anybody that listens to KMFM will know the team that have been working on this.
00:30So, me and Noomi, there's Andy Walker, there's Gary and Chelsea, there's Ben on the hit list.
00:35Everybody's out right now, so this is the first time we've sat down since 8 o'clock this morning.
00:39So the actual delivery of it all is us going out in vans.
00:45If you have donated either in person, ordered a toy or to our Just Giving page, honestly, thank you so much.
00:53This is a fraction of what you've done, you have made some serious magic happen this Christmas.
00:59And if you shared or you talked about it, if you just listened to KMFM and listened to us talk about it, thank you.
01:06There are so many reasons why things like this are important.
01:10Acts of kindness, no matter how small, can have a huge impact.
01:14One of the children that has benefited from this cause is Orla.
01:17She received a gift from donations last year and its impact is still ongoing.
01:22We found out that Orla received a teddy bear from a toy drive and then sadly lost her life shortly after receiving the toy.
01:32And that toy now lives on with her family and her brothers and it kind of made it real.
01:38Because it makes you realise that actually it's not about how many can we get,
01:42it's about getting the right thing to the right person can really change their Christmas.
01:49Despite the campaign's initial donation goal of £3,000, they received this amount in just the first two days.
01:55And thanks to those who donated, the number continued to rise to more than 12,000.
02:00These parents are going through a massive, massive trauma.
02:04And for them, not to be able to do the most fundamental thing that you would do for your children is to provide them with a magical Christmas.
02:12And to not be able to do that is really, really hard.
02:16So for us, when you guys rock up with these gifts and we package them up for families or invite families in and ask them to choose what their children might like,
02:24it's almost like a type of therapy as well because they can take them home, they can wrap them up and they still feel like they're doing that for their child.
02:32So it really, really is amazing.
02:34For the rest of the week, KMFM will continue their deliveries, making a difference to the young people who need it.
02:40Kristen Hawthorne for KMTV in Raynham.