Some who got gifts from Globe Santa as children long ago, now help keep the joy alive for others

Now she and other family members, including her daughter, contribute to Globe Santa, a program of the Boston Globe Foundation..

“I will always be grateful to the Globe Santa program and am fortunate enough to contribute to supporting the funding, which provides so many others with the same joy of receiving that I once benefited from,” said Campbell, who lives in Malden, in an e-mail.

“I imagine the many boys and girls today who are waiting, watching from their windows, waiting for the truck to arrive with their doll or [toy] truck,” she said.

Campbell isn’t the only former Globe Santa recipient to contribute to the program. Every year many of those who got gifts from Globe Santa as children give back years later, remembering the holiday glow that the program bought them during hard times.

Mark Donovan, of Hanson, said in an e-mail that he gives to Globe Santa because he experienced firsthand what the program can mean to a child at Christmas in a family undergoing financial hardships.

In the late 1940s and ’50s, he was the youngest of four children being raised in Somerville public housing by a single mother on public assistance.

“We were not the only ones in this boat,” he said. “You went to school pretty much in the same few sets of clothes, patches in the knees, holes in the shoes. At times, food would have to be stretched to make it last until the next welfare check arrived.”

“I mention these not so nice memories to elevate the importance/meaning of Globe Santa to a family in our position. I am sure that without Globe Santa my Mother would have had a broken heart on Christmas Day from having little to nothing in the way of Christmas gifts for us.”

“When we opened those gifts from Globe Santa, I am SURE we all knew then that there was a Santa Claus. It meant so much, so very much, to be able to have such a wonderful surprise/experience. It meant that YOU were special, and that Santa thought of and remembered YOU and your family,” Donavan said.

Why is it important for him to give back to Globe Santa?

“In a nutshell, to give a poor kid some dignity, show him/her that someone remembered them, somebody cared for them, to elevate their self-esteem, to help their parents take some of the sting/pain out of them not being able to get those “special” gifts for their kids at Christmas,” he said.

Another donor who has experienced Globe Santa firsthand is Jeanne Gardner. She never received gifts from Globe Santa but that doesn’t mean he didn’t stop by her house with special gifts.

“I was a foster parent for twenty-five years and my foster children were the ones who received the gifts,” she said in an e-mail. “I had more than 150 young foster children, mostly infants and toddlers. I was very grateful for the gifts that they received and how happy it made them.”

“This is my favorite charity and that is why I give to it every year,” Gardner said. “It is really an important charity and brings happiness to so many!!”

Tom Coakley can be reached at [email protected]