Operation Santa: A heartwarming, fun way to help a child in need

When you hear about a wonderful project such as Operation Santa, you just have to tell as many people as you can about it.

This holiday season, millions of children across the U.S. won’t receive holiday presents from their families. According to firstfocus.org, more than seven million adults in households with children reported the children often or sometimes did not have enough to eat, 18 percent of those families were behind on rent, and 51 percent of those households, as of August 2020, had lost their employment since the start of the pandemic.

Since May 2020, an additional 2.5 million children are living in poverty due to COVID-19, and this was expected to increase by 25% by this month. UNICEF claims that 132 million people may go hungry in 2020, and of that enormous number, 36 million are children.

If you are one of the lucky ones, if you have even a small amount to give, Operation Santa, a joyful project from the USPS, is a wonderful way to do so. We think projects like this are what Burl Ives meant when he wrote the lyrics “have a cup of cheer” in his song “Holly Jolly Christmas.” If there ever was a real cup of cheer, projects like this would be what was inside.

Here’s how it works: You read through thousands of letters in “Santa’s mailroom” (they’re handwritten and scanned from children all across the country) and select one that speaks to you. Answer one, answer two, answer one hundred if you like! Find the perfect gift for that child, wrap and pack it, then ship it off via USPS. Your gift will arrive from “Santa” for the child who wrote the letter. We weren’t lying – it’s gosh-darn heartwarming.

Here are a few of the letters up for grabs:

You can read more about the project and read through the letters here. If this is something you participate in, please comment below and tell us about the letter you chose. We’d love to hear!

Now we’ve got to go select some letters ourselves…

##RVT978