7 News Belize

Stone Loves Kids
posted (December 21, 2012)
Stone Jam is one of Belize's most enduring DJ's and one of the best - but today instead of spinning records as he is known to do - he was playing Santa Claus for the children in his neighborhood. For over 50 years he has been living on George Street and 3 years ago he teamed up with his cousin Kevin Kemp who lives in the US to do an annual toy drive for the less fortunate children in his area. It is the season of giving and this evening toys were being given out in abundance to 300 hundred children of the Mesopotamia division.

Stone Jam, organizer
"What are doing is that we have a toy drive annually - this is the third year that we are doing this and we are doing it for the kids in this community. We previously called it "the Mesop Toy Drive" but we don't want to mix it up with politics, so we change the name we called it S&K Toy Drive which is myself as Stone Jam and my cousin from out of LA do this jointly for the kids in this area. Now we are expanding it out of this area."

Monica Bodden
"Why did you guys decided to team up and do something like this for the community?"

Stone Jam, organizer
"People say that this neighborhood is not a good neighborhood and we try to show them that good things still happen in this neighborhood - people like me who live here for 50 years and good things still happen in the community. People like me try come out and contribute to the community."

Monica Bodden
"How do you guys actually collect the toys? Is ot donated by people or how does that work?"

Stone Jam, organizer
"We get some donated and between me and my cousin we purchase some in the US."

Monica Bodden
"How many kids will benefit from this?"

Stone Jam, organizer
"Right now are doing about 375 kids. These are good toys; we get our toys from Toys R Us, it's not fly-by-night toys."

Monica Bodden
"What's the age group you guys cater for?"

Stone Jam, organizer
"From age 1 to age 10, once you pass 10 then we take you off the list because we carry a list - we keep a list of the families. Most families have 5-6 kids in the family, so once you jump that we take you off then the other kids come on to the list."

Monica Bodden
"I see juices and I hear music, is it a party as well?"

Stone Jam, organizer
"It's a party as well - with that part we have sponsors who donated the drinks, cake, sweets, tents, we hook up with different partners and they came in and donate that stuff."

Monica Bodden
"This is a big party because I even see a fire truck."

Stone Jam, organizer
"The fire truck is here because my cousin works with the fire station in California and he has a connection with the fire station here in Belize, and so they brought out the fire service also."

Kevin Kemp, organizer
"My cousin and I came up with the idea a couple of year ago - we've been doing it for three years at least in this area. We've been doing it in Belize City, Dangriga, Ladyville and different parts of the country. I grew up in this area and I went to St. Ignatius and I know back in the day St. Ignatius use to give out toys when I was a little boy. I decided to come back to the neighborhood - George Street has a kind of bad reputation but there are some good people here, the kids are wonderful. We do toys for the needy in Los Angeles with the fire service and the fire men for 23 years and so we decided to incorporate that idea here in Belize to bring some toys here and share it amongst the kids."

Monica Bodden
"How does it make you feel to know that some of these kids - this would be the only Christmas present that they will be receiving?"

Kevin Kemp, organizer
"It does us good that we could at least touch the kids and help out. Someone help me out when I was small, so we are just returning that as Belizean/American."

A party was also held for the children which ended at 6 this evening.


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