Hook a kid up for Christmas, and make your day - Chicago Sun-Times |
| Hook a kid up for Christmas, and make your day - Chicago Sun-Times Posted: 20 Nov 2010 02:52 AM PST When I was a little kid, I never asked Santa for clothes for Christmas. Never. No matter how strongly my mother might have suggested it. I was all about the toys. It was a disappointment to find clothes under the Christmas tree. My thinking was that if mom thought I really needed clothes so much then she and my dad could make their own arrangements with Santa, which is often what they did, because we were not an affluent family, and they were sensible parents. I've talked to enough people about this subject through the years to know we were not unique in this regard. And that's just one of the many reasons that I'm a big fan of the Sun-Times' annual Season of Sharing program and its letters to Santa. You see, we're expecting to handle some 13,000 letters this year from young children -- preschool through third grade -- and you'd be amazed at how many of them ask Santa for clothes. I'm talking basics: coats, shoes, boots. Nothing designer. The kids write these letters at school, so there's no parent sitting there putting them up to it. It's true teachers usually help the youngest children write their letters, but I've always been told they don't need a lot of prompting. Kids ask for what they want. Sure, most of them do ask for toys, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that either. For some of them, it might be the only toy they receive this holiday season. But for nearly every single one of them, it's one of the true highlights of their school year. As always, though, we need your help to pull this off. Nobody enjoys asking other people to dig into their pockets or to get out their checkbooks (well, nobody except maybe a couple of the candidates for mayor, no need to mention names), but this is one program for which I have no hesitation in making what professional fund-raisers call The Ask. If you can afford to help, please do. It's been another tough year for a lot of folks, I realize. They tell us the economy is rebounding, but not everybody sees the evidence yet from where they're sitting. Even if nobody in your own family is out of work, you're probably still trying to watch your spending more closely than you once did. My own experience, however, is that this is the best money I'll spend this holiday season, especially now that my kids are long past the stage of getting excited on Christmas morning. I mean, this is probably the only excuse I'll have this year to shop for toys, which I kind of miss. If you've never participated, the Sun-Times program is a little different than some in that we sort of play matchmaker: pairing the kids' letters with those of you willing to give Santa an assist. If you just want to donate money, we're more than eager to accept it. But if you're interested, what we really want at this stage is for people to request one -- or more -- of the kids' letters, purchase one of the requested gifts (they're instructed to ask for three items so you can choose), then wrap it and deliver it to school. It's definitely more labor intensive on your part than some programs, but results in a bigger payoff all the way around. I paid a visit Friday to one of our participating schools, Charles G. Hammond Elementary, 2819 W. 21st Pl., which straddles Pilsen and Little Village. Hammond is a neighborhood school of 448 students, about 98 percent of whom are at or below the poverty level. At Hammond, they treat Santa right, setting up a workshop for him in the school library on the last day before Christmas break. The kids come and sit on Santa's lap, and he gives them their gifts. Some teachers allow the kids to unwrap their gifts in class, and others require they take them home first, says counselor Carmen Martinez, and either way, there are lots of excited squeals and "ooohs" from ALWAYS grateful children, she reports. Some children insist on taking their gifts home to be opened at Christmas, Martinez told me. They are usually the ones who aren't expecting anything else, she says. All the kids I met were smiling, especially when I mentioned Santa. "It's a big thing here," Martinez said. "It just brings that little extra joy at a time when I think the kids deserve it . . . I'm overwhelmed sometimes by how generous people can be." The accompanying box givesdetails on how to participate. You might get a letter like this one from Hammond School third grader Isabel: "Please Santa may I get a shoes size 6W or pants size small or sweter size midium and I would like the clothes the color black for Christmas." We can do that. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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