Hundreds of motorcycles revved up to the Killarney International Raceway this past weekend as part of Toy Run 2025 – a campaign run by motorcycle clubs across the country to collect and donate as many toys as possible to charity and non-profit organisations ahead of Christmas.
This year’s event took place on Sunday 31 November.
Bobby McGee, vice chair of the National Toy Run Trust and member of the Cape Town Motorcycle Club, says the Cape Town Toy Run is one of 19 Toy Runs held nationally on the last weekend of every November. “This year is the 43rd Toy Run,” he says.
Apart from the bikes and toys on Sunday, visitors were also treated to a variety of stalls and kids had a play area which they could enjoy. There was also a live band performing to keep the crowd moving.
The Toy Run Cape Town also thanks all the bikers and everyone who supported the event on Sunday. Three trucks were filled with toys, they say. The toys were sorted out on Monday.
The Killarney International Raceway posted on social media that thousands of bikers donated toys to underprivileged kids during this year’s Toy Run. The bikers left from the N1 City Mall and the Athlone Stadium to Killarney.
On Friday 29 November the Cape Town Motorcycle Club collected over 1000 toys from the Edgemead Primary School and the St Georges Grammar School in Mowbray.
“The biggest thing for me this year was getting the school initiative going and I am hoping that next year we can approach all of the primary schools, as many as we can reach out to,” says McGee.
He says the initiative is run by the biking community, but that it is not necessarily for the biking community. “This was a biker initiative way back in the 1970s. Everybody would like to give and donate, but they do not know how to. The Toy Run is actually a fantastic conduit to provide the public’s generosity to the underprivileged out there, especially at Christmas time, because we want to bring a little bit of joy into their lives.”
McGee says the Toy Run is growing and that it is reaching out far and wide.
“I hope next year to be able to get 40 000 toys. Our target wish-list was 25 700 in 90 or so NPO’s and charities. I think we are going to reach that target with the number of toys we collected this year, but next year we are hoping for more. All the kids in town have toys that are just laying there, unused toys, and this time of the year is a perfect time for moms and dads to clear out three- or four-year-old toys, to make way for new things in those households,” says McGee.
