Santa Claus, Ind., needs volunteers...
Posted: December 1, 2008 10:38 pm
Post office that answers letters to Santa Claus is being inundated with letters this year. I'll be sending my son's letter tomorrow.
Santa Claus, Ind., needs volunteers...
BY RICH DAVIS | SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
HELP WANTED: Town of Santa Claus, Ind., desperately seeking dozens of kind-hearted volunteers with legible handwriting and a belief in the REAL North Pole.
"Short and simple, we need more Elves," says Pat Koch, who put out the call this week because (thanks to the Internet) the town's tiny post office has been hit by an avalanche of children's letters to St. Nick.
There has been a 700 percent increase so far this month as online chatter about the town's free Santa letters spreads faster than eight tiny reindeer through cyberspace.
More and more moms are blogging about free Christmas things to do with their children, points out Paula Werne, spokesman for Holiday World & Splashin' Safari, which is owned by the Koch family.
Usually the post office has received 2,000 children's letters by Thanksgiving, on its way to 10,000 by mid December.
But Werne says this year there's already been more than 15,000.
The Spencer County town - which has been answering children's letters to Santa for more than a century - has about two dozen volunteers known as Santa's Elves.
Since 1974, this non-profit group led by Koch has made sure every letter from around the world is read and personally answered with a P.S. attached to a colorful form letter from Santa.
And there's no cost, unlike some letter-writing Web sites.
For the past couple of years Santa's Elves has accepted online requests.
Even before Santa's Elves was started 34 years ago, Koch was helping her father, Jim Yellig, who portrayed Santa Claus for half a century, answer the Christmas mail. Yellig died in 1984 at age 90.
"If you have trouble getting in the Christmas spirit, this is the cure," says Koch. "This is a simple, sweet way to help a child believe in the magic of Santa and the spirit of giving."
Adds Werne: "I've taken home the letters and read them before. The letters often are funny or silly, some are wickedly greedy, wanting pages 103-108 in a catalog, but some are heartbreaking. They want a bed for their mother or for their dad to come home."
Volunteers work out of the Santa Claus Museum in the town's shopping center. Anyone interested in volunteering can contact the Santa Claus Museum by e-mail at scmcurator(at)psci.net.
Meanwhile, children wishing to write to Santa should address their letters to: Santa Claus, P.O. Box 1, Santa Claus, IN 47579.
Letters may also be requested via the Santa Claus Museum Web site: www.SantaClausMuseum.org. Koch urges parents to check that a legible return address is included. Donations to help pay postage costs may be sent to the same address.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/130 ... 08.article
Santa Claus, Ind., needs volunteers...
BY RICH DAVIS | SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
HELP WANTED: Town of Santa Claus, Ind., desperately seeking dozens of kind-hearted volunteers with legible handwriting and a belief in the REAL North Pole.
"Short and simple, we need more Elves," says Pat Koch, who put out the call this week because (thanks to the Internet) the town's tiny post office has been hit by an avalanche of children's letters to St. Nick.
There has been a 700 percent increase so far this month as online chatter about the town's free Santa letters spreads faster than eight tiny reindeer through cyberspace.
More and more moms are blogging about free Christmas things to do with their children, points out Paula Werne, spokesman for Holiday World & Splashin' Safari, which is owned by the Koch family.
Usually the post office has received 2,000 children's letters by Thanksgiving, on its way to 10,000 by mid December.
But Werne says this year there's already been more than 15,000.
The Spencer County town - which has been answering children's letters to Santa for more than a century - has about two dozen volunteers known as Santa's Elves.
Since 1974, this non-profit group led by Koch has made sure every letter from around the world is read and personally answered with a P.S. attached to a colorful form letter from Santa.
And there's no cost, unlike some letter-writing Web sites.
For the past couple of years Santa's Elves has accepted online requests.
Even before Santa's Elves was started 34 years ago, Koch was helping her father, Jim Yellig, who portrayed Santa Claus for half a century, answer the Christmas mail. Yellig died in 1984 at age 90.
"If you have trouble getting in the Christmas spirit, this is the cure," says Koch. "This is a simple, sweet way to help a child believe in the magic of Santa and the spirit of giving."
Adds Werne: "I've taken home the letters and read them before. The letters often are funny or silly, some are wickedly greedy, wanting pages 103-108 in a catalog, but some are heartbreaking. They want a bed for their mother or for their dad to come home."
Volunteers work out of the Santa Claus Museum in the town's shopping center. Anyone interested in volunteering can contact the Santa Claus Museum by e-mail at scmcurator(at)psci.net.
Meanwhile, children wishing to write to Santa should address their letters to: Santa Claus, P.O. Box 1, Santa Claus, IN 47579.
Letters may also be requested via the Santa Claus Museum Web site: www.SantaClausMuseum.org. Koch urges parents to check that a legible return address is included. Donations to help pay postage costs may be sent to the same address.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/130 ... 08.article
i would probably cry my eyes out reading some of those letters..