A holiday tradition in Hillcrest continued this year with the annual “Holiday joy for toys” party. Now in its fourth year, the successful party continues to bring in hundreds of toys for the holiday fundraiser and proves that the GLBT community and friends are still kids at heart — and know how to shop for the best toys. Toys ranging from bicycles and games to Barbies and Transformers were gathered up and taken away in two truckloads by the time the festivities were over.

“The event wasn’t going to happen, but in the last two months we decided to pull it off,” said Thomas Nelson, one of the party’s founders.

For the last three years the party had been hosted at the home of Gary Copson, but when he wasn’t available to host the party this year the organizers had to find a new location to hold the event. Fortunately, Jose Letayf and Jim Walsh were able to make their Bankers Hill home available for the party.

“Jose and Jim stepped up to keep the tradition alive,” Nelson said. “They heard that it might fall off or go by the wayside so they offered their home. We did it in two months and we are really happy with the turnout.”

Complete with tents, heat lamps and three bars, the party was held outdoors, taking advantage of the acre of land on which Letayf and Walsh’s house sits.

“It was much greater than we expected,” Letayf said about the turnout. “We expected about 400 people and about 600 showed up. We expected about 500 toys and we got about 800.”

“That’s pretty good since it was invitation only,” Nelson added. “It’s always about quality versus quantity, to get people who can see the benefit and bring the toys and help support this, which is really nice. Everyone that comes is helping in some way.”

Donations were also accepted at the door to help support the Hillcrest Youth Center.

“This is a crowd that we try to help bring to The Center as well,” Nelson said. “To get more people like this to help donate. With The Center, a lot of the top tier people in San Diego are donating the most. You have the people who donate the big money, but it’s nice to get people in our bracket, or the masses, to donate too.”

South Park Bar and Grill, Deborah Scott of Kemosabe and Indigo Grill provided food for the event. Café Cerise, a new downtown restaurant located at 1125 6th Ave. that is set to open this week, also provided a preview of what their restaurant will be serving. Hamburger Mary’s also sponsored the event with a cash donation.