NATCHEZ — The staff and guests of one local hotel helped make Christmas morning merrier and brighter for the patients at Blair E. Batson Hospital for Children in Jackson.

Holiday Inn Express General Manager Ellen Self said the Natchez hotel partnered with Holiday Inn locations in Winona and Jackson to collect more than $1,000 worth of toys for the children at the hospital.

Self said the hotels began collecting toys Dec. 15 as a bit of a last-minute holiday charity effort.

Since the hotels started collecting toys a bit late in the holiday season and because the staff would only get one more paycheck during the toy drive, Self said hotel staff decided to incorporate their guests into the event as well.

The hotels offered 1,000 bonus reward points to their guests if they would contribute $10 to the toy drive.

“We were utterly amazed at the guests that were willing to do that,” Self said.

A crewmember who was in Natchez filming the James Brown biopic “Get On Up” also donated a bicycle to the drive, she said.

Self said she was overwhelmed by the generosity of everyone that contributed.

“It was just such an overwhelming feeling to know that kids (had) a Christmas because my staff and the other staffs and our guests made that possible,” she said.

Self may have been overwhelmed by the generosity that made the toy drive possible, but she was not surprised.

“Mississippi may be on the bottom of lists on a lot of things, but we’re No. 1 per capita when it comes to giving to charities,” she said.

Self and C.K. Desai and Moneel Sharma with the Desai Hotel Group, which owns and manages the hotels, dropped off the toys at the hospital Monday. The feeling she got when they dropped off the gifts brought tears to Self’s eyes.

“There are so many people hurting in the world, and if we can put a smile on one child’s face, it’s just great,” she said.