Every year since 1912, the U.S. Postal Service has made the letters to Santa it receives available to the public to read and adopt, allowing generous strangers to fulfill kids' Christmas wishes. This year is no different. Letters to Santa from low-income kids are now available for adoption online at a new USPS website, launched last week. Back in 1912, you had to live in New York City or Chicago to adopt a letter, and you had to do it in person. Those legacy programs still exist at one post office branch in each city to find a letter to answer. Now, everyone else across the country can join in.
The new site, USPS Operation Santa, is now online with letters ready to be adopted by people all over the country. In previous years, the program has been available in less than two dozen cities, but this year, the letters may be adopted from every place in the U.S. You can find and select letters through that site, and print them out along with encoded address labels. To protect the privacy of the children and their families, their family names and addresses are redacted, but the specially encoded labels will ensure gifts reach the kids. The deadline for sending gifts is Dec. 20.
The nonprofit BeAnElf.org is helping out by providing resources for volunteers who want to brighten the holidays for a family, but also for families in 15 cities who need assistance to make Christmas happen. But in just about every community around the country, there are nonprofit organizations that families can reach out to and volunteers can work with.