PORTLAND, Ore. — For more than a decade, the nonprofit Rock'n Rooms has been trying to brighten up the darkest days for kids.
Robin Jasper started the nonprofit around 2012, after her grandson had treatment for stage four cancer. He was in and out of the hospital for about a year-and-a-half. She decorated his hospital room and the other children on the floor loved it.
Now Jasper has a healthy teenage grandson, and a storage unit filled with toys and decorations that will go to kids in the hospital. Rock'n Rooms is one of the more than 150 nonprofits that receive toys from the KGW Great Toy Drive. The donations benefit kids beyond the holidays.
"It's just so heartwarming to see the children's reaction," Jasper said. "We serve children at Doernbecher, Randall's, Shriners and the Oregon Burn Center, delivering baskets of fun to children that have a hospital stay of three weeks or longer."
Jasper said for the children, a day can feel like weeks and a week can feel like months, and many of them are confined to their hospital room and can't leave.
Rock'n Rooms has partnered with the KGW Great Toy Drive for the past eight years, but for this nonprofit, these toys aren't just for the holidays.
"They give us so many toys that we use all year long for the children," Jasper said. "They get super excited and big smiles on their faces, and they just can't wait to go through the basket and see what all they got."