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Remembering loved ones through Globe Santa
They keep giving in order to help children, certainly, but also because Globe Santa holds a special place in their heart.
If you read through a batch of letters to Globe Santa, it’s clear that hardships confronting families who ask for help stem from countless different circumstances.
Serious health problems, joblessness, homelessness, addiction, divorce, death in the family, the list is seemingly endless.
But there is one fundamental reason that thousands of people write those letters:
They want their children to celebrate the holidays festively and with joy, rather than feeling forgotten, disheartened, and less worthy than others.
“I’m a single parent of two beautiful children,” the father of a son, 8, and a daughter, 10, wrote to Globe Santa this year. “I am currently unemployed and would greatly appreciate any assistance in making Christmas memorable for them.”
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His brief letter described the impact of all these hardships.
“I never thought that at the age of 50 I’d be a single parent and starting over,” he wrote. “My children don’t have any fault in any of this and this our first X-mas that we’ve been in a situation like this.”
He’s struggling to find a job, pay the rent, keep up with the cost of essentials like food, gas, and heat, and still save enough for holiday gifts. The year has been overwhelminglystressful, but it’s concentrated his focus and his purpose.
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“All I know is that my children are my life and I’ll do everything to make sure they are happy,” he wrote.
Thanks to Globe Santa, he will have one less worry and his children will have quality gifts to open and a reason to smile on the big day.
Without assistance, many of these children would receive nothing at all.
Fortunately, help is on the way. Globe Santa raises more than a million dollars every year to enable children to have a happy holiday.
But the program wouldn’t exist without the generous support of all those who donate to the fund drive. Many have made contributions every year for many decades.
They keep giving in order to help children, certainly, but also because Globe Santa holds a special place in their heart. There are donors who received gifts from Globe Santa as children, and others who contribute as a way to remember and honor lost relatives, friends, and even pets.
One recent donation arrived the old-fashioned way, with a check tucked into a stamped envelope and mailed to Globe Santa.
The donorenclosed a handwritten note with some background.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to give to Globe Santa every year since I was 16 (1969), and used my babysitting money, until today. I give in memory of my children’s grandmothers,” she wrote.
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Another donation is a way for one woman to remember her parents
“In memory of Mom and Dad,” it said simply. “Thank you for adopting me!”
Christopher Tangney can be reached at [email protected].
For 68 years Globe Santa, a program of the Boston Globe Foundation, has provided gifts to children in need at holiday time. Please consider giving by phone, mail, or online at globesanta.org.
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