Santa and his helpers remember Whidbey Island children

Published 7:00 am Saturday, December 23, 2006

Forgotten Children’s Fund comes through once again for island’s families

What would Christmas be without a visit from Santa? For children it would be incredibly sad, no doubt.

But one group is working to make sure Santa forgets no one on Whidbey Island.

The Forgotten Children’s Fund is working hard to brighten the holidays for area children.

Thanks to a group of dedicated volunteers, 250 children on Whidbey and Camano islands will be visited by jolly old St. Nick and his elves — all volunteers with The Forgotten Children’s Fund. They will be delivering toys, warm clothes and bikes to 90 families in Island County.

On Thursday, Santa and his elves were busy unloading bags of toys from a 53-foot-long semi-trailer truck at the M-Car-C Ranch in Freeland. The toys were delivered to the island from the fund’s warehouse in Seattle.

As the rain pelted down on the happy group, they carried off large plastic bags packed with wrapped toys and rolled 70 bicycles off the truck and into a barn. Each bag tagged with a number is matched with a box of food.

On Christmas Eve morning about 50 volunteers dressed as Santa and his elves will head out to make deliveries to some very happy children.

At each home, Santa gives presents to the kids while his elves secretly stock the kitchen with margarine, cheese, ham, beans, olives and a number of other essentials.

For the second year, Mike Dolan will be donning a red Santa suit and delivering gifts to children.

Dolan said he can’t imagine doing anything else on Christmas Eve.

“A lot of kids still believe in Santa Claus even though they may not have much at home. This is a way to help families have a nice Christmas,” Dolan said.

With The Forgotten Children’s Fund special deliveries from Santa, every child in the family, including teenagers, gets gifts. Santas and helpers bring along a Polaroid camera, too, to take pictures of the children with Santa.

This same scene is happening in three other counties, King, Pierce and Chelan.

The Island County chapter was founded by Bill and Deb O’Brien of Coupeville.

“We were involved with the fund in Seattle, and when we moved to Whidbey Island in 2000 we saw a real need here,” Deb O’Brien said.

“It’s so magical to give a child a personal visit from Santa Claus,” she said.

“We begin right after Thanksgiving when representatives from the charity begin screening families,” O’Brien said.

Once the group gets family names, it screens each family and then calls the parents.

“We tell them that we want to provide them with Christmas,” O’Brien said.

“We do this anonymously, in the spirit of Santa,” she said.

The Christmas budget for Island County kids this year is $25,000. The gifts are new, purchased by The Forgotten Children’s Fund with money raised from fundraisers held throughout the year. Volunteers wrap each gift and write each child’s name on the tag.

“We assume the families have Christmas dinner taken care of, so we bring a box of staples for their pantry that will last beyond Christmas,” O’Brien said.

This year, The Forgotten Children’s Fund worked closely with a consortium of other agencies — from Holiday House to Help House and all in between — to learn who would need assistance without duplicating services, O’Brien said.

“This collaboration is one more step in the willingness of social service groups to work together within Island County for the betterment of all people here,” she said.

Families that will be visited include those where a parent has been laid off, for example. The goal of the group is to assist families who don’t have another means of support for the holiday season.

The fund has been gearing up for Christmas all year, buying new toys and clothes as inexpensively as possible.

Through shared purchasing with the chapter in Seattle, the money goes farther through discounts offered by suppliers.

The fund’s total budget is $200,000, most of which is spent for the families, O’Brien said.

“We buy toys in bulk from gift shows. That way we are able to buy everything from mittens to bikes at very reasonable price,” O’Brien said.

At 9 a.m., Sunday volunteers will gather at the M-Bar-C Ranch and begin loading the donated moving trucks with toys, bicycles, warm jackets and food staples. There will be coffee, juice and cinnamon rolls for Santa and his elves before they head out.

For last-minute instructions, the Santas and their elves will gather around a roaring fireplace at the ranch. Information sheets about each family will be distributed, along with a MapQuest map for each address. After deliveries are made, volunteers will return to the ranch for a potluck dinner.

The Forgotten Children’s Fund got its start in Seattle in 1975 when one such forgotten child wrote a letter to Santa, asking him to please come on Christmas Eve and leave a few gifts for his family.

In the letter, the child explained that his mother told him and his little sisters that Santa had gotten lost the year before and might get lost again that year. The little boy, named Craig, included a map for Santa, and added that Santa shouldn’t bring anything for his father because he wasn’t there anymore.

While the letter never made it to the North Pole, it did make it into the hands of some caring adults in Seattle. While they never found Craig, they formed an organization in 1976 to try to eradicate the sadness and disappointment from other children’s lives that was felt by the boy and his sisters.

The M-Bar-C Ranch is owned and operated by The Forgotten Children’s Fund, which conducts a Ranch Experience Program for children who are physically, mentally or emotionally disadvantaged.