Globe Santa delivers toys and offers friendship, too

Resumen detallado

Globe Santa provides a lot more to families than toys and books. He’s a trusted confidante, and a source of reassurance, hope and inspiration.

An 11-year-old girl wrote to Globe Santa to share some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that she started sixth grade. And she’s “really excited about it.”

The bad news is that her father has been out of work since last December. “He is looking for jobs but he couldn’t find something suitable for his medical condition,” the girl wrote.

That’s all she wanted to say. No special requests for toys. No messages for the reindeer. Just a wish to divulge something hard, to confide in someone she’s decided to trust.

It’s clear from so many letters like this one that Globe Santa provides a lot more to families than toys and books. He’s a trusted confidante and a source of reassurance, hope, and inspiration. Globe Santa can sometimes remind those who feel alone that they are truly part of a community.

“I am still holding strong as a single mother, without natural supports,” writes the mother of a 12-year-old boy. “I am very grateful to you for the boost you have offered us this Christmas.”

The Globe Santa program has been a big part of the Greater Boston community for a long time — seven decades, in fact. With its strong public profile, it’s earned a lot of goodwill.

When Globe Santa first appeared in the pages of the Boston Sunday Globe on Nov. 10, 1956, the stated mission of the “Mayor Hynes-Boston Globe Santa Fund for Children” (as it was then called), was to ensure that “no child in Greater Boston goes unremembered on Christmas.”

In reality, Globe Santa is simply a logo, a website, a phone number, with a robust infrastructure supporting the operation that provides holiday gifts to thousands of children every year. But for so many of those who write to ask for gift assistance, Globe Santa is a living and breathing entity.

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