HOULTON, Maine – The hand-penned letters dropped into a special North Pole Express box located in historic downtown Houlton have piqued Santa’s attention just weeks before his Christmas rush.
Last Christmas, Lilly Haggerty placed the North Pole Express mail box outside the Carleton Project just off the Houlton town square to add a bit of magic back into Christmas.
“I was trying to reach as many kids as possible and thought parents and kids could walk downtown, look at the decorations, drop off the letter to Santa,” said Haggerty who is the director of the Carleton Project, a private alternative high school.
They are already collecting this year’s letters and Santa, aka WHOU’s Chris Putnam, will read them on the air at 5 p.m. every Wednesday and Friday, starting on Dec. 6. And if the letters to Santa pour in, the station is prepared to have Santa read them every day until Dec. 20.
“Santa has to stop then because he needs a break to get ready for Christmas,” Haggerty said.
Much like the USPS Operation Santa Project that began in 1912 and the efforts of volunteer elves in Santa Claus, Indiana, Haggerty, Jared Tapley of the Northern Maine Development Commission and WHOU Morning Show Host Putnam, are bringing holiday magic into the lives of people who pass the box and secretly drop their wishes inside.
Each year Haggerty creates a Christmas kingdom for the students, many of whom do not have trees or a holiday at home. It starts before Thanksgiving as she fills the school with lighted and elaborately decorated Christmas trees and begins planning what to stuff in student stockings and what gifts to buy for each.
The letters to Santa initiative, an extension of that effort, has blossomed into an undertaking that beckons kids and adults to pen their thoughts to Santa and drop them into the box.
“I wanted the students, who are at-risk kids, to see something good,” said Haggerty. “The kids are all into it full swing and now that they see it, they are all liking it and thinking of the things they want to do.”
Last year one random letter fell out of the box when Haggerty and Tapley were bringing it inside for the holiday.
They both were upset that the letter did not get read on the air, said Tapley.
So after reading the boy’s letter and purchasing the items on his list, they let his parents know they were coming by and Tapley dressed as Santa.
“We rang jingle bells all the way to the house so he could hear them and we were yelling’ HoHoHo.’ We dropped them at the door and left,” Haggerty said. “I talked to the Mom who said this year he is so excited and can’t wait to do his Santa letter, can’t wait to put the tree up.”
In Santa Claus, Indiana, a town of a little over 2,600, community volunteers gather as Santa’s elves to respond to the 22,000 letters to Santa they get each year.
The USPS Operation Santa Project began when postmaster general Frank Hitchcock gave local mailroom clerks the authority to open, read and answer letters to Santa. By the 1940s the program went public with thousands of letters pouring into post offices. As the program has evolved,volunteers can now adopt Santa letters and purchase gifts from Santa for the letter writers.
The postal service offers letter writing tips and free sample letter templates online.
Haggerty also has templates for anyone wanting to write a letter and she has even dropped bunches off for kids in Canada and at ACAP who asked for 40. She is considering asking the local nursing homes if they would be interested in having residents write letters.
Anyone can write a letter and it doesn’t have to be on the template. It can be a drawing, or a letter on any paper that lets Santa know what you want, she said.
Last year County kids asked for legos, lots of legos, tacos, trips to Disney World, dogs and cats. Most letters were handwritten and many started with messages like, “Dear Santa, I have been a good boy.”
