The coronavirus won’t stop 2 B.C. women from organizing annual toy drive
For the past seven years, Richardson has helped donate more than 10,000 brand new toys for kids in the oncology department at BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver as part of toy drive in her son’s name.
Sean Thomas lost his battle with leukemia in 2015 at the age of seven. He was overwhelmed by all the gifts at his final birthday party outside the oncology ward, attended by more than 200 people.
“He said, ‘Mommy look at all these toys, but it’s too much. I’d like to share them with my friends,'” Richardson recalled. “I said, ‘Sure honey, what would you like to do?’
“He said, ‘I’d like to deliver them to my friends in the hospital.'”
It’s precisely what the family did and has kept doing every year in Sean’s memory on his birthday — Sept. 24. Sean’s Gift of Sharing is now in the midst of fundraising for its seventh annual toy drive.
It even managed to hold a successful drive at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing their campaign online with a GoFundMe page for the very first time.
