A VOLUNTEER EFFORT by Bath and Brunswick Elks to ensure that local children in need receive Christmas gifts. Updates written by a Santa Claus Fund volunteer appear in each edition of The Times Record from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve.
There are only four days remaining to get your letters to our mailbox. We try very hard to process and approve your requests in a timely manner. That will all change when the office lights go dark, and we close the books for another year.
Our shipping department will stay until the last box is sealed and sent to the holding areas. Please don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.
Here is our address once again: The Santa Claus Fund Inc., P.O. Box 278, Brunswick, ME 04011.
To qualify for assistance, you must live in our service area and be the parent or a legal guardian for children, age 13 and younger, who might go without Christmas gifts this year.
Please include your name, address and phone number. Then include the names of your children, indicate if they are boys or girls, and give us their ages and date of birth. Seal the letter and get to the post office as soon as you can.
Call us at 319-9317 the next day to check on your letter. We can help, but we have to hear from you first.
It has been an interesting year, to say the very least. Moving and operating in a new environment presented new challenges, but it worked out well.
New volunteers have learned fast and seem to be enjoying themselves. Two new volunteers are reaching out to the business community, and it is making a difference.
New suppliers have provided more choices. And volunteers are doing more of the buying, which was a tremendous help.
We have set up a separate room for the phone system. We are using cellphones with voice mail, and that has helped people to reach us faster and easier. We are adapting in small steps, but adapting nonetheless.
The time has passed with incredible speed. I look at the date on my watch occasionally, and I ask myself: Can that be right? Where did the time go?
It’s OK because we are steadily moving forward. And the people I work with at the North Pole Annex, share a common goal: Let’s give these families a helping hand, even if it is only a small one.
Now I have to get back to the reason I visit you each day. I should be reporting the numbers to you. Sorry for my philosophical moment there, please excuse me.
We have packed toys for 475 children as of 1 p.m. Monday. These boxes now fill the once empty holding areas.
We have processed and approved 230 letters. We still have a few pending letters that are not included in that count. But we will get to them soon. We have no time to waste.
The receipts for the day were excellent — nothing like the blockbuster day we reported on Monday, but a steady pace toward our goal of $30,000. Let me introduce our latest group of donors.
The Modern Woodman of America, Camp 7938 donated $25. William Cockburn sent $20. A group with Betty, Elaine, Sonny and Barbara sent $50 in memory of Eunice Wilson, Barbara Wilson and Beverly Bibber.
C.B. & Lucy Hodgdon sent $25 in memory of Tom and Yvonne Michaud, Lauriane Cote, George Michaud, Monica Bernier and Davey Michaud.
Judy and Dan Briggs sent $25. Marilyn Dwyer sent $50. Marjorie and Duane Helmbolt donated $25. Edward Hamlin of Leominster, Mass., sent $35.
Mort and Diane Hamlin gave $50. Beverly and Michael Gray sent $50. Mollie Sandock and James A. Brokaw II sent $50.
McCormack & Bouchard Eyecare sent $100. Harold and Delores Warren sent $50 in memory of “our loved ones.”
Stanley and Carla Davis donated $25 in memory of “our parents.” Gayle D. Brown sent $50 in memory of “my husband, Richard W. Brown and son-in-law, Michael Levasseur.”
C. B. Hodgdon donated $25. An anonymous donor sent $25. Donna and Dana Greenlaw contributed $50.
David N. Taft, DMD, gave $100. Hammond Lumber chipped in $50. Down East Energy gave $100.
Thank you so much. The total for today is $980. Adding that to Friday’s total puts us at $24,013.
Terrific! Well done, everybody. Thanks for joining our team.
If you would like to become a team member, all you have to do is send a contribution to the Santa Claus Fund Inc., P.O. Box 278, Brunswick, ME 04011. We will publish your donation, and if you would like to make it in memory of a loved one, just let us know. We will be glad to do it.
On Wednesday, we are on the road again to the Blueberry Hill Nursery School. These little ones made a fabulous contribution, and I want to meet them and personally thank them. I hope to bring you a couple of pictures so you can meet them too.
We’ll be back Wednesday, right here in our hometown paper, The Times Record.
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