The Mission Impossible has been achieved. Just moments before we would have had to admit failure, we reached our target for the Christmas Toy Appeal this year. And so it was a truly magnificent week for the Community Links and Newham Re

SIMPLY THE BEST. The Mission Impossible has been achieved.

Just moments before we would have had to admit failure, we reached our target for the Christmas Toy Appeal this year.

And so it was a truly magnificent week for the Community Links and Newham Recorder Christmas campaign for 2009.

We managed all but 500 of the 3,000 toys we needed to ensure no child is left out at this special time of year. And this morning, Links will be getting the final donation to help us achieve our goal.

It is simply fantastic.

Newham Council staff helped with their collection for the appeal. Those at the new Building 2000 Dockside have been placing toys in special boxes left in every department of the building.

And they also staged Bucket Days, where they will be going round the building in fancy dress, collecting cash for our vital campaign. Thank you so much.

Generous shoppers at Asda Beckton filled trolleys to overflowing with donations of toys dropped off at the Beckton store. More donations came in thick and fast since our last edition.

There was an anonymous cheque for �20 from a couple who did not leave their name. The Westover family, (and their six cats!) from East Ham, supporters of our campaign for many years, also donated �20.

Former Recorder reporter now Microsoft chief Geoff Sutton gave us �50.

We would also like to thank our network of drop-off points for doing their usual fantastic job of helping the campaign for its full six-week run.

You can read about two crucial donations elsewhere on this page.

Our printing deadlines prevented us from thanking everyone we needed to thank.

We will do that in a special page in our next edition on December 30

God bless you all.