Sarah Kana-ah donates toys for Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton

Sarah Kana-ah has been helping various charities throughout the year, but decided she wanted to do something for the hospital this Christmas.

She spent time at the special care unit when her son, Ethan, was born.

“I’m a mother myself to a 9-year-old boy who was in hospital in the neonatal unit for quite some time when he was born due to being premature,” she said.

“I know that if he had to spend time in hospital over the festive period, receiving a little gift whilst in hospital would be lovely and bring a smile to his face and mine.

“When you’re a parent and your child is in hospital, your child’s health is a priority and Christmas is the last thing on your mind.

“So being able to support those families and children by providing Christmas presents will hopefully take any pressure off and bring some smiles to the children’s faces.”

Ms Kana-ah, who currently holds the title of Ms Somerset, started the toy collection just over a month ago, and received hundreds of toys from local businesses, nurseries and the community.

She dropped the toys off at the hospital on Tuesday, December 22, and also gave the staff a hamper, to keep them smiling during Christmas.

The hospital said the donations will be shared across the children’s ward, maternity units, the neonatal ward, to the children with life limiting illnesses, the oncology children’s cancer ward, the Women’s refuge safe guarding team and also to social workers to use for children and families who have no money and very little this Christmas.

A spokesperson for Musgrove said: “We were delighted with such a generous donation of toys – so many that we were able to also share some with our patients’ siblings, too. We also sent toys to our maternity and children’s day surgery wards, to our children’s emergency and outpatients departments and out to our community children’s teams across the county. We had a lot of smiling faces!

"We have lots of toys to share with our patients, so rather than ask for any more donations of gifts and toys, we are now exploring new ways for people to be able to support the children in our care. We also need to be extra careful due to coronavirus, so please don’t send or bring donations directly to us at the hospital at the current time.

"Thank you so much to everyone for all your kindness and support.”

“I felt very teary and emotional knowing that I’d set the appeal up all by myself and managed to donate just under 1,000 toy donations in the space of 6 weeks for so many children in need this Christmas,” added Ms Kana-ah.

“It makes me feel so proud to live in Somerset, knowing how caring and supportive our community really is during such difficult uncertain times.

“Going forward, I will continue to support and help my local community in any way I can.”

Ms Kana-ah has also raised money for MIND and SIDAS charities, and has created Facebook groups for domestic abuse victims and people who suffer from mental health problems.