Not all of Johnny Corner’s Christmas memories are happy ones.

As a child he spent many holidays lying in a hospital bed undergoing painful tests. However, whenever someone popped by with a surprise gift or to sing a Christmas carol, it made a huge difference in his day.

And that’s exactly what he wanted to bring to the children who spent their holidays in Barrie’s Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) at Christmas.

“Since the age of three I have been chronically ill and have spent a lot of time in hospital and not exactly having a great time,” says Corner, 20, a Pre-Service Firefighter Education and Training student at Georgian. “I remember it wasn’t much fun and I had to go through a lot of tests. However, the hospital ran events and people came in to cheer us up.”

Corner says it’s been a dream of his for a long time to repay the favour. This past Christmas just seemed the time to do it, and with his classmates from Georgian on board, children at RVH enjoyed a little extra holiday cheer.

The firefighting students kept busy during December collecting new unwrapped toys for their RVH toy drive. While a stuffed animal or a new video game doesn’t take the pain away, it helps make the time in hospital a little less stressful for the younger patients.

The toys collected by the Firefighting students were distributed to the children on Dec. 23 and then left for the emergency department staff to hand out to children during the rest of the holiday.

“It has been very cool to see how the community has responded to this toy drive, but the best part of this project was delivering the toys to the children and spending some time with them. That was the ultimate goal,” said Corner.