By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Some Santas defy the storybook image of a white-bearded man dressed in red and conveyed by reindeer. Here in Bowling Green, the Santas are more likely to wear jeans and pack gifts in pickup trucks.
For the eighth year, the Dear Santa Society in Bowling Green will do its best to answer the Christmas wishes of about 40 families. The organization, founded by Jim and Dee Szalejko, goes well beyond buying teddy bears and candy canes.
Through the generosity of the community, the Dear Santa program has given such gifts as a violin and music lessons to a child whose greatest wish was to learn how to play, ballet lessons for a child who dreamed of dancing, and baseball registration fees for a child who longed to play ball. One year, the local Santas delivered bicycles to an entire family.
Another year, the program received a special plea from a local child, whose family was on the verge of being evicted after missing two months’ rent. “All I want for Christmas is to be able to stay home,” the child wrote. So the Dear Santa program paid the overdue rent.
This year, the group plans to help a young swimmer whose family can’t afford the program fees, and help pay the way to Disney World for a marching band member whose family can’t swing the costs.
“It’s unbelievable, the need in the city,” said Dee Szalejko as she prepared for another year as the local Kris Kringle.
The Dear Santa program actually had its start 28 years ago in Philadelphia, when Jim Szalejko asked one of the post offices in the city to send him a letter written by a child to Santa Claus. The post office faxed him eight letters.
“I couldn’t decide,” Jim said.
And the Dear Santa Society had its soft opening. “I had no intention of forming anything.” He just asked some friends and family to help him fill the requests.
But when the next Christmas rolled around, the Santa helpers from the year before wanted to repeat the joy. And from there it snowballed.
“I remember every delivery,” Jim Szalejko said, especially in the most downtrodden neighborhoods of Philly. The toughest request came from a little girl whose dad had recently died. “She wanted her dad back,” he said. “We went overboard with her.”
When Jim moved to Bowling Green in 2007, he continued to head back east every Christmas to help with the program that had grown to a couple hundred letters each year.
Meanwhile, Dee, an intervention specialist at Bowling Green High School, was noticing the children in the district whose holidays weren’t very bright. “There was so much need,” she said.
So Jim suggested that Santa set up a satellite shop here in Bowling Green. The couple established the charitable non-profit Dear Santa Society organization, and Jim became “Santa 1” and Dee became “Santa 2.”
Dear Santa became a district-wide initiative, with help from all areas of the school system – teachers, administration, secretarial staff, bus drivers, food service staff, maintenance workers and student groups. The effort went community wide, with businesses, citizens and service groups donating. This year, Meijer stepped up to donate $3,000.
“We get tremendous support from the community,” Dee Szalejko said. “This small town really comes together.”
And all the contributions go directly to the children and their families. “No one gets paid,” Jim Szalejko said.
The Dear Santa program identifies children most in need from information passed along by teachers and letters sent home to parents asking for specific wishes of their children.
“Some of them are kids I know personally,” Dee said. The same goes for Jim, who drives bus for the school district.
The program also provides groceries like hams and fresh fruit, plus toiletries to families.
The Bowling Green program has grown so much, helping 563 kids since its inception, that Jim has relinquished his role with the Philadelphia Dear Santa program and focuses on gift giving here.
“The purpose is to give them what other kids are getting,” Dee said. “It’s a drop in the bucket,” but can make a world of difference to those kids who get to take music lessons or get some new clothes to wear at school.
“You never know. Maybe that will end up being a scholarship someday,” Dee said about music or sports lessons. And the gifts will at least make the holidays more pleasant and make coming back to school more bearable.
“I like it when kids come back from the holiday and they have new clothes – like all the other kids – and they have things to talk about that they got,” Dee said.
Both Santa 1 and 2 agree that the volunteers are rewarded greatly for their efforts.
“It helps the people who help,” Jim said. “It kind of brings them back to reality.”
Dee remembers one year helping a grandmother pay for her grandchild’s medicine. The woman vowed to reverse the roles if she was ever able. That woman now makes sure to ring the bell for the Salvation Army every holiday season.
“She calls me and tells me every year,” Dee said.
The Santa spirit has spread to several in the community, and to the Szalejkos’ grown children, some who continue the program in Philadelphia.
“That’s exactly what you want for your children,” Dee said.
But the couple admitted that the demands of being Santa are tough – so much so that they have not put a Christmas tree up in their home for the past eight years. “We’re exhausted at the end,” Dee said, smiling. “We need elves to come in and put up a tree.”
Anyone wanting to request gifts or make donations may send letters to Dear Santa Society, P.O. Box 513, Bowling Green, OH, 43402.
