More need than ever for Star's Santa Claus Fund

As the decorations go up — earlier each year, it seems — and shoppers overrun the malls searching for the perfect gift, it’s easy to forget that Christmas is just another date on the calendar for some Toronto children.

They feel no giddy anticipation of something special. They have no expectation that Santa will visit.

They experience no magic.

That is where you, the generous readers of the Toronto Star, come in. As you have year after year.

Your donations to the Santa Claus Fund ensure that, for tens of thousands of needy local children, Christmas does not pass without joy.

Since 1906, this paper’s annual charitable drive has acted as a bridge between your kindness and the children of Toronto who would otherwise awaken on Dec. 25 with little or nothing to unwrap.

Child poverty in this city has reached “epidemic” levels, with 19 per cent of children — almost 149,000 — living in low-income families, according to information released this summer by a coalition of activists and social agencies.

It is shameful, really, that Toronto, a city in which it’s almost impossible to count the construction cranes, is tied with Saint John, N.B., for having the highest child poverty rate among the country’s 13 major cities.

And, the report states, it’s getting worse, not better.

For the families of many of those children, a gift isn’t even on the radar, not when finding enough food to eat and affordable housing is already a monumental challenge.

But no child should be forgotten at Christmas.

For more than a century, the Santa Claus Fund has tried to ensure that doesn’t happen.

This year’s drive, launching today, aims to raise $1.6 million so that 45,000 children in Toronto, Brampton, Mississauga, Pickering and Ajax will receive a gift.

Working together, we have never fallen short of our goal.

“Over the years, and in many cases over the decades, our readers have generously donated to the Santa Fund,” says Toronto Star publisher John Cruickshank,

“The need is great, but with the help of our readers we can once again bring some Christmas joy to children and families who might otherwise be forgotten at his time of year.”

The Santa Claus Fund is a registered children’s charity, and every dollar contributed by you goes toward filling gift boxes for the kids. All of the administrative costs and labour associated with the fund are covered by the Star.

A veritable army of volunteer elves assembles the presents — typically warm clothes, a book, a small toy, candy, a toothbrush and toothpaste — at a secret workshop. Those colourful gift boxes are then distributed by more volunteers, including church groups, Girl Guides and Boy Scouts.

For many of the children, it is the only holiday gift they will receive.

Remarkably, and impressively, it is estimated that since 1906, the Santa Claus Fund has raised more than $43 million and provided gifts for 2,165,320 children.

“If we can put a smile on 45,000 little faces, then we’ve done our job and done it well,” says Barb Mrozek, director of the Star’s charities and philanthropy.

The charity started because Joseph E. Atkinson, the Star’s crusading publisher from 1899 to 1948, didn’t forget his own hunger and yearning — and a gift he received from a stranger as a child.

In 1865, when Joseph was just 7 months old, his father was hit by a train and killed. That left the little boy and his seven siblings to be raised by their mother alone. Money was, understandably, very tight as she struggled to feed and clothe her children.

Poverty was not an abstract concept for Joseph. He lived it.

One winter’s day, young Atkinson was watching children skating on a pond when he was approached by a woman he did not know. She asked why he wasn’t skating, too. When she heard about his sad circumstances, the woman bought Joseph his first pair of skates for Christmas.

Atkinson always remembered the generosity and warmth shown him by a stranger. He also remembered his own difficult upbringing, and when he became a voice of influence in Toronto — a city that despite incredible commercial growth still contained wretched slums — he felt compelled to promote humanitarian causes and help the downtrodden. Through the Star’s pages, he championed social reform.

In 1906, a reader sent a letter to the editor of The Toronto Daily Star, as it was then called, asking how it might be possible to help “some really poor family” at Christmas, noting the difficulty in getting in touch with people who deserved it.

“Can you through the Star bridge the gap?” the letter concluded.

It was a letter that a man with a fiery social conscience could not ignore. Such was the squalor in some parts of the city that at the start of the 20th century, four out of 10 children in Toronto did not live to see their first birthday.

Atkinson published the letter on the paper’s front page under the headline “A Santa Claus Suggestion.” Below it, the paper asked if there were others in the city inclined to help the cause.

“There are many hundreds of little folks in this wealthy city, and in this prosperous year, to whom Christmas and Santa Claus are unfortunately meaningless terms,” the paper wrote.

And with that, the Santa Claus Fund was born.

The Star did not say how much money was raised that year, but it reported that 100 families, including 373 children, received Christmas parcels. Those packages included woolen stockings, candies, nuts, raisins, biscuits, oranges, crackers, toys, games, dolls and squeaking animals and were all delivered by horse-drawn sleigh on Christmas eve.

“I think Joseph Atkinson would be happy to know we’ve continued the tradition of helping kids,” says Mrozek. “I think in a child’s early, formative years, an act of kindness like this is extremely touching and unforgettable.”

Mrozek notes that many donors and volunteers who help the Santa Claus Fund “once received a gift from our charity and just want to pay back.” They understand what a simple gesture of help can mean to a child.

While Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus, the Santa Claus Fund helps children from infancy to age 12, no matter what their religion or cultural background. Recipient families are assessed and identified by social agencies and community service groups to ensure they are genuinely in need.

The fund has, sadly, expanded massively even in relatively affluent times.

“Despite many signs of economic well-being in our city, the need to help our less fortunate residents keeps growing,” says Cruikshank.

“Indeed, 30 years ago the Santa Fund supplied 25,000 Santa boxes to children in our community. This year the Star will distribute 45,000 boxes, a clear sign that over the years the number of needy families has risen significantly.”

Fortunately for the children, so has your generosity.