Letters to Santa reveal nation in need
By Donna Leinwand Leger, USA TODAY
Crystal Skipwith knew her mom didn’t have the money to buy her a coat or toys for Christmas. So when the giant bag of gifts arrived on her Washington, D.C., doorstep, the 8-year-old knew only that she had written to Santa, and Santa delivered.
“Everything I requested in that letter was in that bag,” Skipwith recalls. “I believed in Santa for a very long time.”
Skipwith knows the truth now. The letter she addressed to Santa Claus 20 years ago went to the U.S. Postal Service’s Operation Santa, which matches letters from needy children with donors in the community willing to fulfill their holiday wishes.
Now Skipwith, 28, a senior administrative assistant at KPMG who has a toddler of her own, plans to give back by adopting a letter from the postal service’s program.
“Every child deserves to have a smile on their face,” Skipwith says. “No child wants to feel poor. Every child should feel like they have what they need.”
Operation Santa begins its 99th year today, and Pete Fontana, chief of Elf Operations at New York‘s main post office, expects a record number of Santa letters from needy children as families continue to cope with a shaky economy.
“I think this is going to be the neediest year ever because the economy has not improved,” Fontana said. “We’ve already seen a lot of really sad letters.”
Post offices in 75 cities around the country — triple the number that participated last year — will sort Santa letters, number and log them into a computer, black out identifying information except first name and age, and ask the public to respond.
Nearly 5,000 letters addressed to Santa Claus at the North Pole arrived at the New York post office on the day after Thanksgiving, Fontana said. He expects to receive 2 million letters this year, up from 1.8 million in 2010.
Los Angeles fielded 3,000 letters in 2010 and found Secret Santas for 300, spokesman Richard Maher said. Other cities participating include Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis, Austin and Savannah, Ga.
People who want to adopt letters can choose them at participating post offices starting today. The Secret Santas must commit to returning with the gifts, preparing the packages for mailing and paying for proper postage by Dec. 23. Letter carriers will deliver the gifts to the families.
And like last year, Fontana expects many needy children will ask Santa for necessities, instead of toys.
Many letters have come from mothers or grandparents who cannot afford to buy gifts for their children, Fontana said. They ask for shoes, winter coats and a toy or two, he said.
Victoria, 67, wrote a letter on behalf of her granddaughter, Nisa Marie, 6, whose mother has been unemployed for more than two years. “She applies, applies and applies and never gets hired anywhere,” she wrote.
Victoria fears this year “may be the worst Christmas ever.” She asked for clothes, shoes, toys or a little radio.
LaTanya, pregnant and living in a shelter, asked for clothes and accessories for a baby girl due on Jan. 4. “I pretty much lost everything I have,” she wrote.
Wilma, 10, asked for school supplies and school clothes. She, her brother and three sisters are being cared for by their grandmother following their mother’s death.
“My grandmother doesn’t have money to buy us what we need for school,” she wrote. “It’s really hard to live without a mother. But we love our grandmother and we’re thankful to have her.”
Secret Santas adopted about 40,000 families in New York last year, Fontana said. Fontana and his staff of 21 expect more letters will get adopted this year.
“We can process more. We’ve had a lot of companies asking how many hundreds of letters they can get. We’re really cranking it up,” Fontana said. “Nobody wants to say no to these kids.”
While most requests are Barbie dolls, videos games and the like, Operation Santa has also coordinated unusual gifts.
Sheryl Lewin, a surgeon at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, adopted a letter last year from Mya Worthey, 26, the mother of Shimaya, a 7-year-old girl born deaf with only one ear. Worthey wrote that it broke her heart every time Shimaya asked her for another ear.
“I have tried so many doctors, but have had no luck or my insurance didn’t cover the charges,” Worthey wrote.
Postal Service employees working with Operation Santa called hospitals all over Los Angeles. A plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills heard about their quest and called Lewin, who specializes in ear reconstruction.
“It shocked me that a kid who lives in Los Angeles hadn’t gotten to me or to someone who knew me. I was a little sad that the system had broken down a little,” Lewin said. “But I was very happy that such a crazy way brought her to me.”
Lewin has performed two surgeries to repair Shimaya’s ears. On her third and final surgery, Lewin will pierce her ears under anesthesia as a special surprise. “All the girls always ask me if they can wear earrings,” she said.
At a follow-up visit last week, Shimaya, who had initially been terrified of Lewin and the surgery, came into the doctor’s office “smiling and happy and confident,” Lewin said. “That’s as good as it gets for a doc.”
Fontana, who has led Operation Santa since 1987, said year after year he is amazed by the community response, the impact on the families and the unexpected miracles he witnesses.
Fontana has already fielded one family’s request for a bed. “The letter was very short: Dear Santa, All I want for Christmas is a queen-size bed because some of the kids are sleeping on the floor,” Fontana said.
Minutes after he read the letter, Sleepy’s, which sells beds, called and asked to participate in Operation Santa.
“After I put down the phone, I was looking up at the sky, shaking my head and going hmmm,” Fontana said. “Is it a coincidence or is some other force at play here?”
