Secret+Santa

Ideas for Secret Santa Project
Hi Secret Santa's

We did visit the Monarch school and there do have a party on the Dec 23 and lots of organization make sure that the kids are not forgotten. But what kids might not be able to do is make a presents for their parents. I am suggesting that we send the money to the school to help the kids have the joy of giving presents to their parents. And a mini picture book would be a great gift. They have them for as little as $5 and reasonable ones for $12 at Snapfish. The quality is great. This would be a great gift for the kids to give. They had cameras at the school. If you tell me how much you want to contribute, I will get a gift card and write a letter to the school like the draft below. They would have to create them quickly as they take about a week to ship. But they did have an afterschool club and this could be a great project. They have computers on carts so I think it would be easy enough.

If they can't manage this, the money could be used in some other way to buy presents for their family. I think that letting the kids be a secret santa is a really neat way to extend the notion of making Santa Real. Here is a draft of the letter. I will get the money transferred to credit cards and include printout copies of internet sites where they can make these books.

So if you are in, tell me know much you want to contribute by email and I will try to get the package delivered on Dec1. Don't feel any pressured to give more than you can. And thanks for joining me in making Christmas real. I will let you know how much we collected and tell you when it is delivered.

Margaret



Dear Monarch School,

At this time of year there are always kids who want to know if Santa is real. It can be a puzzling question for both kids and adults. One way to respond to this question is to say that YES, Santa is real --his is the spirit of giving and lives in the hearts of anyone who is willing to give without recognition. There are many secret santas at this time of year and few of them have noticed the hard work and dedication you have for the kids of San Diego and we would like to help in a small way.

We want to make it possible for the kids to join in the real joy of Christmas which is giving to others. We have collected this money to make it possible for your students to have to funds to buy presents for their parents or guardians. As parents, we know how valuable pictures are and small photobooks might be perfect gift. They are small, portable and personal. Having a book of pictures from school is a gift of knowledge. The books come in all sizes from small to large. We have collected enough money for all of the students to make a 5" x 7" book. We know this leaves the work of arranging the pictures to you, however each class could have a template book by uploading a small collection of class photos and autostreaming the pictures into a book. Then even the youngest children could replace a few of the pictures with pictures of him or her and put his or her picture on the cover, and maybe use a page to type a short christmas message to their parents. I am sure you could get the older kids to help the younger ones to make the books.

If this will not work, or if you have already arranged for the students to give presents to their parents, then please use these funds to let each child buy a book of their choice.

We are happy to know that we made Christmas a bit nicer for these students.

Secret Santas

I have heard from Mitch, (already collecting money), Le Hung, Heather Schneider, Brad Davey and of course me--mm Add me, Sue Wolff, WA Cadre 8 as a donor but put me to work if there is something needs doing up in this part of the world. And I don't pay attention to who gives what. I will report the total here and I will give anyone a report by date and check but not name.
 * 1) Who is interested in being a part of the Secret Santa Team?**


 * Report from the visit to the school**

We (Faculty from Pepperdine) visited Monarch yesterday and it was quite impressive to see what was being done for this children. The school takes children from shelters, motels and also from families crowded in apartments--inadequate housing.

The students might be there for a few days or a number of years and everything inbetween. The students named the school and they are taught in multigrade classrooms with a staff of very dedicated teachers. The goal is to help student catch up for lost time. They can help students gain an additional year of growth in the first 6 months. They work intently as this might be all the time the student has before they move on to some other arrangement. The school is full service--3 meals a day with family night twice a week where they feed the parents as well. The students are given shoes every 4 months and also there are clothing days where they can chose slightly worn clothes. They also have a full range of health services and resources. It was great to see that these children were managing well despite the problems that their parents are experiencing. It was great to see happy thriving kids who were eager to play with us when we entered the room. One tidbit we found out is that the kids together chose the name for the school.

This is accomplished by having private donations match the public school funding.  http://www.monarchschools.org/about_us.shtml

So this is invitation to make Santa real...which means none of us get any recognition for the giving. We need to do it in such a way that no thank you's are needed. The only reward we get is knowing that we helped make Christmas a bit more mysterious. Please note that I am not collecting money though Pepperdine. This is me as a person. And once our planning is finished, I will take down this site.

So what should we do? Ideas are welcomed.

The school has a final party on Dec. 23. Then they break for the holidays for one week. They have just under 100 kids enrolled at the present time.

2nd-4th 10 5th-7th 20 8th 21 9-12 43

One idea is to buy books. While it great for kids to have books, if we choose we will get some right and some wrong. Second is to let them buy the books. We could get gift certificates but they would have to get to the store. Third is Amazon -- the school has laptops and I suspect that they would know how to use gift certificates.

The other options is to send the money to the principal and let the staff buy what the kids want.

And other idea is to send the money to the school and let the kids buy presents for their parents. We could buy an American Express credit card and then I could think of a way to get it there. The problem is trusting postal mail with money and any registered mail has to have a return address. I could just go in and leave a letter for a the principal and most likely the secretary will assume I am a parent and I would be long gone by the time it is opened and any description of me would be useless.

Pick a color for comments (with name for the first comment) --this way we can track changes to person.

Margaret



