Be a Santa to a Senior - Help Me
/
I don’t think it’s a revolutionary statement to say that the year 2020 has been pretty terrible so far, and this is true for virtually everyone. It has been a year of death, extreme illness, not seeing family, missed vacations, canceled weddings…I could continue the list on and on. We all can relate to stories of insomnia woes, mental health struggles, and grief. But among the most affected and hurt by the current global pandemic and the resulting quarantine have been senior citizens.
There is a special place in my heart for our elders. It saddens me that our modern society doesn’t revere them the way that earlier cultures did, and many of today’s tribal cultures still do. There is a wisdom that comes with so many years of life experiences, and there are so many people out there whose stories, whose wisdom, isn’t heard or listened to or respected anymore.
It breaks my heart to see them, living out what might be the last few years or decades of their long lives, having to be cut off from what visitors they might have—those moments of joy and connection. The media has shared heart-rending images of families having to visit their grandmothers and grandfathers, great grandmothers and grandfathers, through retirement home windows, masked, shouting loudly or holding up signs to try to communicate in any possible way.
Even those forgotten seniors who do not have family or friends visiting them usually at least have the occasional church group visit, and at Christmas there are carolers visiting the care homes. But none of those things are happening at all right now. The staff members at these facilities are heroes who are doing the best they can to keep up morale, but it’s definitely a lonely year for our elders.
A few years ago, I was at Walgreens and noticed a Christmas tree covered in paper ornaments with wishes. The literature on the tree explained that the program was called “Be a Santa to a Senior.” You could choose an ornament off the tree, and commit to fulfilling the wishes of that person. My heart melted as I looked at the wishes on that tree: “soft blanket,” “Werther’s Candies,” and more than one request for “Ohio State University items.” Most of the wishes were straightforward, but sometimes the seniors would throw in a quirky request or two, for puzzles, games, or a stuffed animal. Then there was the year that I quickly snatched up an ornament upon which some darling woman named Tammy had requested a “calendar with men on it” (along with slippers and household items, covering all the bases thoroughly.) Bless her heart. She got her calendar, a beefy one with shirtless cowboys. I hope she enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed her request.
Walgreens stopped displaying the tree a few years later, and the next year, I looked up the information for the program and contacted my local chapter, asking if my workplace library could be a tree location. Each year since then, in the month of November, we’ve happily and proudly housed a tree and have been thrilled to see it completely emptied of ornaments multiple times over the course of the month, and refilled by the local Home Instead staff.
Unfortunately, in 2020, our library isn’t currently open. It’s hard to display a tree with paper ornaments when you’re only doing curbside delivery. So, dear friends, this is where you step in, I hope. The program is national, so by all means please search your local zip code to see if you can assist those in need close to home, but if your search doesn’t yield anything, perhaps you’ll consider helping to make up for the deficit our library’s closure might be making for the seniors in need here in my central Ohio county.
This year, out of necessity, the program is trying a new means of operation. Although there are a couple of physical tree locations still (a local church and the Home Instead care center) most of the wish bulbs are now virtual on the website beasantatoasenior.com. Clicking on each bulb at this link will take you to a wish list on Amazon for a different senior citizen in my area. The benefit of this new method is that each person can choose to fully or partially fulfil a person’s wish list, and the bulb only disappears once all of the items on their list have been purchased. This makes it easier for caring folks who might only be able to afford to help by purchasing one or two small things to still be able to experience the joy of supporting their elders in need.
There are many different organizations devoted to assisting children and families in need around the holidays, but to the best of my knowledge, Be a Santa to a Senior is the only program of its kind helping those senior citizens who have given so much, lived so much, and are sometimes forgotten or neglected. Please help me to show our elders some of the love and respect that they so often deserve. Please share a little holiday kindness with my local seniors, and bring a twinkle of Christmas magic into their eyes again.
