CHP Gets The Toys From You Just In Time For Holidays

INDIO – Jolly ol’ Saint Nick rode in style down to the California Highway Patrol office in Indio to deliver Christmas gifts.

“There’s a lot of children this year that don’t have Santa Claus in their life,” says Diana Marlo with Desert European Motorcars in Rancho Mirage.

More than 275 local businesses owners and guests, including KESQ, got together and collected toys of all shapes and sizes as part of theCHP Toy Drive.

“It’s been a tough year for a lot of people so when officer Perez came to us we wanted to contribute. A lot of customers came to the store and brought presents, the BMW service customers all brought presents so it makes quite a few kids happy this year,” says Marlo.

“Yesterday I was getting a count and I was still behind on my goals that I was trying to achieve and this is definitely going to put us, if not over the top, very close to the top,” says Ramon Perez with the California Highway Patrol.

The top being about 1,000 toys. They will then be delivered to children at the Saul Martinez Elementary school in Mecca. It is the only school in the state of California named after aCHP officer killed in the line of duty.

“Officer Martinez was very big in the community and to follow in his tradition the school passed out 700 turkeys to the community. So they’re big in the community and so we thought this year we’d do something for them…1,000 toys is physically a whole lot of toys but we’re going to go ahead and get them there. If Santa can do it, we can do it,” Perez says.