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30th annual Christmas in July Toy Run spreads holiday cheer for kids at Philadelphia hospital

PA: 30TH ANNUAL CHRISTMAS IN JULY TOY RUN

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    PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (KYW) — Christmas came early at Shriners Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia as members of the Centurion Motorcycle Club dropped off gifts and delivered joy to the kids during their annual toy run.

“Being able to see them smile and grab a toy and be happy even if it’s for the one day, it means everything to us,” said Brian Cain with Philadelphia’s Chapter of the Centurions Motorcycle Club. “This is why we do it.”

The toy run has become a tradition at the hospital. It’s an event kids like Yair Bonilla look forward to every year.

“I see the happiness that they put on these kids’ faces, especially mine. It really makes me emotional, and they really do a lot for these kids and they help out a lot,” said Bonilla, who is a patient at the hospital.

This year’s toy run was even more special for the motorcycle club as they celebrated their 30th anniversary. In the past three decades, the club has been able to raise $1 million, with all of the money going to the kids at the hospital. So far this year, the club has raised $100,000.

“To see the kids’ faces is special, but to see these big burly guys pulling up in a Harley-Davidson with a Barbie in one hand and wiping a tear with the other because they know they are doing something so great for our hospital is amazing,” said Mario Salvati, who is the interim administrator at Shriners Children’s Hospital.

But for members of the motorcycle club, the money raised pales in comparison to amount of happiness they provide to kids who are battling difficult circumstances.

“It really brings tears to your eyes. It’s so wonderful,” Cain said.

And even though it wasn’t winter in Philadelphia, the moment with the kids could still easily give you the chills.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

Can You Hear Chicago Breathe?

Click here for updates on this story    July 27, 2026 (Houston Style Magazine) -- Chicago has never been a city that merely sits still and poses for the skyline. It hums beneath the “L,” testifies through church choirs, debates deep-dish loyalties and keeps time with blues, gospel, jazz, house music, hip-hop and poetry. On Saturday, August 1, 2026, those many rhythms will gather under one roof when acclaimed Chicago artist 7 Metrix presents I Heard The City Breathe at the Beverly Arts Center.The one-night multimedia experience begins at 7:30 p.m. inside the center’s Baffes Theatre, bringing together soulful hip-hop, live music, spoken word, storytelling, visual art and special guest collaborations. Tickets are $25 for nonmembers and $23 for Beverly Arts Center members. The performance is scheduled to continue through 10 p.m., giving the city plenty of time to inhale, exhale and tell the truth.Yet this is not simply an album with stage lights added. I Heard The City Breathe treats Chicago itself as the evening’s principal character—weathered but unbowed, complicated yet creative, bruised in places and beautiful in many more. Through stories of identity, family, fatherhood, grief, faith, survival, healing and hope, 7 Metrix pushes beyond the stereotypes that too often reduce the South Side to a breaking-news backdrop.That fuller portrait matters. Chicago’s Black communities have long used art to preserve memory, challenge injustice and imagine futures that public policy and popular media sometimes failed to see. The South Side Community Art Center, established during the Works Progress Administration era and dedicated in 1941, became a historic home for African American artists. Decades later, the 1967 Wall of Respect honored Black leaders and helped inspire a national mural movement.photo During the 1960s and 1970s, artists connected to the Black Arts Movement, AfriCOBRA, radical jazz and community institutions made Chicago’s South Side a laboratory of cultural possibility. They created their own spaces, questioned the political status quo and produced an artistic legacy that continues influencing national conversations about race, protest, identity and belonging.It is fitting, then, that I Heard The City Breathe will be presented by an institution born in that same transformative period. Founded in 1967, the Beverly Arts Center has spent nearly six decades building community through dance, music, visual art, theater, film, education and outreach. Its 40,000-square-foot facility includes a 400-seat theater, galleries, studios, classrooms and gathering spaces—a cultural toolbox large enough for a production that refuses to stay in one artistic lane.The project also looks forward by making room for young creators. Developed with students from ISPro Academy and a network of Chicago musicians, producers, performers and engineers, the larger initiative incorporates music, film and gallery elements. That intergenerational approach turns mentorship from a pleasant talking point into a working creative model. Young participants are not being asked merely to watch history; they are helping record it.In a recent interview about the project, 7 Metrix described the work as a way of preserving “the breath of the city” and giving Black Chicago a voice through which it can see and speak to itself. The album’s emotional landscape moves through pain without becoming trapped there. Songs address trauma and instability, but they also make space for joy, humor, ambition, family, resilience and generational healing. Chicago gets to be human rather than headline-sized.For Houston audiences, that approach should feel familiar. Houston and Chicago are distinct cities, but both have neighborhoods whose creativity is often overshadowed by outsiders’ assumptions. Both know culture is carried not only by famous institutions, but also by barbershops, sanctuaries, school auditoriums, family kitchens, independent media and artists willing to document what official histories overlook.I Heard The City Breathe arrives as both celebration and corrective: one city telling its own story in its own voice, with its own rhythm section. Longtime Chicagoans may recognize pieces of home. Visitors may discover a city more layered than the postcards and news alerts suggest. Everyone is invited to listen closely.The performance takes place Saturday, August 1, from 7:30 to 10 p.m. at the Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60655. Purchase $25 tickets directly through the Beverly Arts Center ticketing portal. This is a one-night-only experience, and Chicago—never known for repeating itself exactly—plans to make every breath count. Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.Kierra LeeKIELEESTYLE@GMAIL.COM4096658446
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