Get Involved!
It takes alot of volunteers to make Santa's Pantry possible. There are many ways that you can become involved. Our primary goal is reaching children and teaching them the importance of helping others, "Paying It Forward", and at the same time, help the community. Because of that, a adult must stay with their children at all times during one of our projects that they may be involved with. We encourage the children, and offer the project but it takes the help of the parent at home afterwards to further teach the importance of this "Pay It Forward" movement.
It is totally free to be involved with Santa's Pantry!
Click Here to become a member!
Ways to Get Involved:
Santa Helpers-
Santa Helpers are a group of children (and their parents) that are willing to help with community projects. In 2008 we did such things as held a crayon drive and donated crayons to the Elkhart Elementary Students, planted a garden and donated the vegetables, held many food drives and made Christmas cards for nursing homes. Adults are also encouraged to become Santa's Helpers on their own. We also help groups or organizations think of and plan community events to Pay It Forward.
Christmas Angels- These are the people that help us make dreams come true. At Christmas we receive letters from children that are in bad situations or we hear threw the "grapevine" of a family that really needs help. Normally we pick one or two of these families and try to help. This takes place only during December. We contact our "Angels" and they either purchase items that are needed or have connections to get the items that are needed. We normally try to provide clothing, food and sometimes toys. During 2008 with the slow economy, we actually had four families that we helped. Although we now have to limit it to one or two families per year. The families are decided by our board of directors and we do verify with other agencies such as Salvation Army, Toys for Tots, etc.. that they are not already receiving help from somewhere. This group remains anonymous.
Santa Commandos - This is a group of people that actually deliver the things that our "Angels" provide. This is normally two or three people. Santa tries to make the deliveries personally but sometimes his schedule does not allow for that so we need volunteers.
Santa's Elves- Each year work with Operation Santa Claus and the U.S. Post Office and return letters that chidlren write to Santa. We start receiving letters normally after Thanksgiving with the rush being the last two weeks before Christmas. We need "Elves" to help write these letters. Elves are given a sample letter along with the letter from the child. "Elves" have to provide the paper, envelopes and stamps. All letters need to be proof read by Santa before they can be mailed to children.
The Deuel Project- This is our big project in November and December where parents can bring their children and their own cameras and take pictures with Santa in exchange for food donations for food pantries. It takes many volunteers to make this possible. We need people to find sponsors for our coloring book, people who are willing to do printing for us, people to help the days of the events and much more.
