The Nexus

Jessica Chang
Brittany Kabaci (12), Brooke Tompkins (12) and cheer coach Sarah Wilcox look over the toys they collected for Channel 93.3’s AJ’s Kids Crane, an annual holiday toy drive for Rady Children’s Hospital. This year, the bar was set higher at 100,000 toys.

Brittany Kabaci (12) stared in awe at Channel 93.3’s DJ, AJ, was hoisted 45 feet above the ground on top of a crane.

A counter next to the crane read 98,212. With the 60 toys and two bikes that Brittany, her fellow cheerleaders, football players and some parents had brought, they hoped to make the counter read 98,274.

Channel 93.3 hosted its seventh annual holiday toy drive, AJ’s Kids Crane. Since Dec. 5, AJ sat atop a crane located in the Mission Valley IKEA parking lot.

As dedicated listeners of Channel 93.3, Brittany, her sister Shannon Kabaci (9) and their mom Terri Kabaci organized an event at Westview with the cheerleaders and football players to collect as many toys as they could to deliver to the crane on Dec. 12.

“By bringing those toys to him, we got to be representing our school,” Brittany said. “This year, AJ needed a lot of support, because he had set the bar higher than ever by asking for 100,000 toys.”

AJ promised that he wouldn’t come down from the crane until all 100,000 toys were received. When the group of deliverers arrived back at Westview from IKEA, on the radio, they heard a voice counting down the number of toys remaining until he reached 100,000. A few seconds later, cheers erupted as somebody announced that 100,000 toys had been received.

“Luckily, we didn’t wait another day or we would have missed it,” Terri said.

The toys will be kept in a storage and brought to Rady Children’s Hospital near Mission Valley throughout the year, whenever they are needed.

“At first, we started out thinking, ‘Okay, we’ll do [the toy drive] for the Christmas season,’” Terri said. “But now it’s become more of something where we can give presents to these awesome brave kids who have to be hospitalized, and sometimes it’s for lengthy periods of time.”

Although Shannon doesn’t personally know anybody that will be receiving a gift from AJ’s Kids Crane, she said other stories have inspired her.

“My grandpa has been hospitalized before, and that just motivates me a lot to help out with things like [the toy drive] because [my grandpa] had to go to the hospital for a little while,” she said. “It’s not typically a fun place to be so we are trying to make it better and make [other] students get more involved.”

Brittany, on the other hand, was inspired by current patients.

“As I listen to Channel 93.3, all the stories they tell you [of the children] and the little kids’ voices asking you to help motivates me to want to participate,” she said.

Students could aid the effort by dropping off new toys in the boxes located in the front office.

“The children don’t have much in the hospital, and by donating one toy, it makes a difference,” Brittany said. “The feeling of knowing that you made one more kid happy [with] the simple task of giving them a toy is priceless. Anybody from school could experience that by donating a small gift.”

Throughout the past two weeks, the Kabaci family spread the word about the event to their classmates, teachers and community members to help Westview’s contribution to AJ’s Kids Crane.

Although the Kabacis will not be at the hospital to personally deliver the toys, Brittany said she hopes the patients believe in the students at Westview.

“I want them to know that there are many people who have them in mind and are praying for them to get better,” she said. “I know that they can get through whatever the reason is that they’re in the hospital to overcome their health.”

For this holiday season, Brittany said she has truly learned the importance of small deeds through the toy drive.

“It makes me feel good knowing that I made someone’s day, just by giving them a toy,” she said. “It’s amazing how something that seems so simple goes a long way.”