Los Angeles ABC affiliate KABC-TV was sponsoring the Spark of Love Toy Drive, that was broadcast throughout the day. This is a pretty major station in the US.
No sooner did Mike and I arrive with our robots, than they appeared live on the local news to all of Southern California. Look closely at the pic below, and you can see cameraman Edgar shooting the droids as the news went to a commercial break.
Star Wars characters were in appearance from before sunrise until after sunset, to help encourage viewers to come on down, donate a toy, and get some pictures with them.
Besides viewers, dozens of companies and organizations donated lots of toys. There must have been over 100 brand new bikes alone that were donated.
The toys were all placed aboard public transportation buses. You won't believe how many buses were filled by the time the event ended. (Stay tuned, that info is forthcoming.)
The Ducks Power Players (I call them the "Duckettes") were on hand to help with the cause.
Miss California 2013 Mabelynn Capeluj was on hand as well. (Recall that R2 met Miss California 2012 at an event earlier this month. He's on a roll.)
KABC broadcaster Garth Kemp was the man in front of the camera, filing several live reports per hour, encouraging people to donate. At one point, R2 got to talk on camera. I may be able to get some video of that soon, but in the meantime, here's the not-so-great picture I got.
[Edit: 12/21/2013:] And here is some video.
Orange County Firefighters helped unload toys from delivery trucks all day.
Cameraman Edgar was great at keeping us informed of when we would be going on the air, and managing all sorts of other details of the event.
By the end of the event, over 16 large buses were filled with toys! That's an incredible number of toys! I would hope any nearby child in a situation where a toy cannot be provided at home will receive at least one from today's effort. Maybe even one of the dozen or so that I brought. I hope they like Star Wars!
There should be a lot more happy kids Christmas morning through the efforts of the toy drive. Well done to everyone involved today and each day they've done this drive.
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