Time can wear on a police chief. But for 90 minutes Tuesday morning, Fresno's top cop, Jerry Dyer -- nearly 12 years on the job and approaching his 54th birthday -- looked and acted as if he had discovered the fountain of youth.

He was running into the street, shaking hands and saying that getting out in the community was one of the best things about his job.

Kids Day will do that to an adult. There's something about hawking newspapers on a street corner, waving to people in their cars and scooping up dollar bills that puts a bounce in your step and a smile on your face.

A woman driving eastbound on Shaw Avenue near Blackstone Avenue rolled down the passenger side window and singled out Dyer among more than a dozen people selling $1 Kids Day editions of The Bee.

She handed him $12.34 and said, "I'm giving you all I've got, Chief."

Such generosity isn't uncommon because Kids Day benefits Children's Hospital Central California. The life-saving work done there is remarkable. The courage of the little ones and teenagers battling for their lives or recovering from major illnesses is inspirational.

And so you never know when someone will hand over $20, $50, $100 or even $500 for a Kids Day newspaper.

Tuesday was the 26th Kids Day, and it might have been the best. The sun shined and despite the central San Joaquin Valley's tepid recovery from the recession, people responded. As of Thursday, this year's total of $482,000 had eclipsed the record $470,514 raised in 2008.

Tom Cullinan, publisher and president of The Bee, said that Kids Day really started to take off when schools became heavily involved in the early 2000s. Competition among the schools to see which one could raise the most in their district or region of the Valley led to a doubling in donations.

Bee employees and the staff at Kids Day partner ABC30 give generously of their time to make the event a success -- while covering the news, preparing the next day's newspaper or, in the case of ABC30, putting on a day's worth of newscasts. It's no different for thousands of other volunteers who have jobs or classes that day.

Since its inception, Kids Day has grossed $6.3 million. The event has endured because it's fun, it brings people together and, most of all, it's for a worthy cause.