Our charity BeAnElf.org supports the great USPS program by creating public awareness & recruiting volunteers, & by answering letters ourselves. Since 1912 the US has made letters to Santa available for adoption by the public. In 2020 the program went online, and letters may be adopted from the USPS website every year from mid-November till about December 22nd. Each December, the US Postal Service
's Operation Santa ® program permits the public to read and adopt the neediest letters to Santa online. Volunteers can then mail their gifts directly to the children who wrote the letters. The saddest letters ask Santa only for new shoes, a special toy, or Christmas dinner. There’s no middle man or charity; it’s micro-philanthropy direct from each volunteer to a child, when people adopt letters and send gifts. Volunteers catch the true spirit of the holidays and put smiles on the faces of underprivileged kids on Christmas morning. Be An Elf's website www.BeAnElf.org serves as a guide to the USPS program for volunteers, and the tax-exempt charity uses donations made at its website to adopt letters and send gift cards marked only, "from Santa," to the families whose letters it adopts. Thanks to a $10,000 per month in-kind grant from Google for free advertising, www.BeAnElf.org is able to generate tremendous public awareness of the USPS Operation Santa ® program every year, and recruit and orients thousands of new volunteers every year. The group's website also provides an excellent guide for families seeking gifts and offers tips to navigate the program to parents seeking help with Christmas. Be An Elf also offers support for companies to organize employees to team up and adopt letters from families. To protect children's privacy, USPS staff remove family names and addresses from every letter before posting them on the website. Volunteers may adopt letters at the website, print out the letter along with a barcoded shipping label, and later mail their gifts from any of 19,000 postal branches that offer label scanning. After posting the letters online, children should know that those postal elves mail their original letters to Santa, and that he will send his gifts, too. Some people feel alone and sad over the holidays, and find comfort and inspiration volunteering for this program. Others have families and want to teach their children the meaning of Christmas. Please share the website www.BeAnElf.org in your social media, and inspire friends to bring joy to needy kids in time for Christmas morning. The group's mission is to make underprivileged children smile on Christmas morning and to inspire volunteers with the real spirit of Christmas. Learn more or donate at www.BeAnElf.org. Thanks for being an Elf!
