Toy Collection Continues for Hospital Patients

by Jonathan Weaver

For the fourth year in a row, children at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh will have a brighter Christmas thanks to gifts from local residents.

For the past four weeks, hundreds of toys were collected from residents at businesses in Freeport, Kittanning and McGrann for children in need as part of the 7th Annual Lillie Kay Foundation Toy Drive.

Last December, Ashley DiMond - a foundation board member-,her husband, Justin -owner of DiMond Chiropractic in McGrann-, and other volunteers – including an anonymous ‘Santa Claus’ – took toys such as baby dolls, robots and remote-controlled cars to children who might spend their Christmas in the regional hospital.

In 2015, more than 1,000 toys were donated to patients – a total that exceeded the total in 2014 by nearly 100 and nearly tripled the total donations from 2013. The first year toys were collected locally was in 2013.

The Children’s Hospital toy drive is an extension of the Lillie Kay Foundation’s annual toy drive, which was originally formed December 14, 2010 on behalf of Lillie Kay Kimsey – who died only five days after she was born a year earlier.

The newborn’s death helped inspire her parents –originally of the Freeport area – to help other children in the hospital in her memory.

The evening commemorating Lilly Kay’s first birthday, her parents asked family and friends to bring gifts for Lilly Kay to donate to patients at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Tennessee and it has taken off during the past half-dozen years.

Ashley officially became a board member for the Lillie Kay Foundation in 2014.

Only a few days after the 2014 collection of more than 900 toys, Ashley said a $500 donation from the Kittanning Eagles helped her start collecting toys.

According to the Foundation’s social media pages, since the fifth-annual toy drive donated more than 4,600 toys, books and games between Vanderbilt, Seattle, Pittsburgh at St. Jude’s children’s hospitals last year, five or six more hospitals are to be added to the collection circle.
Unused and unwrapped toys and clothes geared toward both boys and girls aged newborn to 18 years old were requested unwrapped so that parents at the hospital could pick what they wanted to give their child this season.

Due to the possibility of infections, stuffed animals were not accepted.

A Kittanning Elks donation was reportedly already made as early as October.

W.L Roenigk Inc. of Sarver transported all the toys to Children’s Hospital last year.

No final total across the nation has yet been calculated.

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