Worth repeating

U.S. Postal Service workers who handle letters addressed to Santa at the North Pole say more letters ask for basics – coats, socks and shoes – rather than Barbie dolls, video games and computers. At New York City’s main post office, Head Elf Pete Fontana and 22 staff elves will sort 2 million letters in Operation Santa, which connects needy children with “Secret Santas” who answer their wishes.

Fontana, a customer relations coordinator for the Postal Service, has been head elf for 15 years. “The need is greater this year than I’ve ever seen it,” he says. “One little girl didn’t want anything for herself. She wanted a winter coat for her mother.”

Cesar, 7, wrote for himself and his baby sister. “This year my mom don’t have much money to spend on Christmas gifts so I’m writing to you,” Cesar told Santa. “It would make us very happy if you and your elves would bring us toys and clothes.” One mom sent a turn-off notice from the electric company, Fontana says.

Melanney, 9, asked Santa for a coat and boots. “I have been a very good girl this year,” she wrote.

USA Today via Truthout

10 thoughts on “Worth repeating”

  1. You’re welcome, hypnotic. It is the thrilling part of Christmas for me. But, you are right, we need to be mindful and helpful the entire year – not just in December.

  2. I like the idea of adopt-a-family. Thank you Angie for mentioning it. I am looking for a more long term and immediate route than just putting money at xmas time in the Salvation Army box (an organization that I do respect). For me, I like the personal connection to helping.

    I probably shouldnt say this publicly, but I work for the state and I make a better than decent income and am able to save a lot of money based on my personal choices. I could sock it away to retirement but I dont have any faith in the financial structures that any of that would be guaranteed. So, I am looking for ways in the new year that I can help others as a by-product. If the government wont help people using our taxes, I, as an employee will with a portion of my paycheck.

    Reading the comments — Dickens’ Christmas Carol comes to mind — and that is scary because it seems even more relevant today….

  3. I Googled it and came up with this phone number to call to get on their Secret Santa (to be Santa) The phone number is 877-840-0459. Problem is, Santa’s Helpers is closed for this year (probably too late now). I already did local charity stuff; I donated toilet paper to Catholic Charities because people can get food from food stamps or food banks but cannot get toilet paper with food stamps and most food banks don’t have toilet paper. We also donate to Toys for Tots locally and to Heifer International (which uses your money to buy chickens or a cow to feed needy families, they can be found at Heifer.org).

    It is amazing how many people had no idea just how little our welfare system really gives out; they were amazed that people on welfare only get (for a family of six) $560 in cash benefits if they prove they are looking for work, and only $954 in food stamps (again a family of six with NO income, the minute they get any income the benefits are reduced). Rent is way more than $560 for a family that size (room restrictions by law only allow two people per bedroom and only if they are married or the same gender or one different gender is too young for puberty) and that doesn’t include utilities or car insurance. Many western states’ smaller towns don’t have mass transit (and even if they did, food stamps don’t buy bus tickets). Food stamps also don’t buy ANY paper products or the soaps and detergents or shampoos you need to stay clean enough to GET a job, much less gas for the car. In Arizona, the MOST you can get in unemployment benefits (even if you were making six figures) is $240 a week. That’s $960 a month and if you are getting that, your cash assistance is taken away completely and your food stamps are reduced to around $639 (for that family of six) because UI benefits are “unearned” income which means they penalize you for being unemployed and receiving benefits. That still isn’t enough for rent and utilities and car insurance and non-food items and gas/bus tickets. Other charities have been maxed out and cannot pay for utilities or can only pay a small part of these. I know this because me and my family have lived through this back in 2004 and 2006. Toilet paper and menstrual pads (there are four females in our family) were our most needed and least easily found items back then.

    I think of that old Dr. Seuss book “The Lorax;” in it the Lorax says he speaks for the trees and all the other plants and animals who are being polluted to death. I feel like the Lorax who speaks for the needy/welfare folks sometimes. Every week it seems I find myself informing someone about how little welfare actually helps and how so many families live on so little and how so few churches (at least around here) seem to help.

    We see the poor in this country in Calvinistic eyes; they must be poor because they are lazy. Or the new Prosperity Christianity teaches that God wants you to be rich which implies that anyone who is poor is not favored by God and therefore not worthy of our help. Those ideologies have to change if we are ever to feed the hungry and house the homeless here.

    We should not have children going hungry or homeless in this or any other country.

  6. Our agency’s Christmas party gathered up to forty bags of canned good and cereals to go to the Food Bank, and next door, the developer of a new office building is sponsoring a coat drive for those in need.

    After the party, our leftover food was donated to a food running group that takes cooked food to homeless shelters. We are knowing hard times, but the hearts of those who do have, at least in my little neck of the left coast, are open and aware.

  8. Where can I sign up to be a “secret Santa” for one of those kids’ letters? I don’t have much money but I will do what I can. It breaks my heart that little kids are having to live with that worry.

  10. I guess most everyone (on this site, at least) has figured out that this country is essentially going back to the 1800’s (e.g., no safety net for the majority of the population, no regulations for industries such as banking and finance, no sense of a future for the bottom 98% while the top 2% enjoy lifestyles increasingly lavish and obscene.)

    Never thought I’d see it in my lifetime. Oh well. Expect more letters like the above to continue until further pain and misery set in…

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