Santa, Elves Bring Christmas to Homeless Kids

Thanks to HUD's Alaska Field Office staff, sixty-one homeless children were able to visit with Santa and take stuffed stockings and festively wrapped packages back to their rooms in preparation for Christmas Day.

Anchorage's Safe Harbor Inn opened its doors to homeless individuals and families just two years ago and since its opening, the Alaska Field Office has provided Christmas gifts for approximately 25 to 30 Safe Harbor children. In the summer of 2004, however, the shelter doubled its size and the number of residents. That presented a challenge to HUD employees, and the answer to the challenge appeared to arrive in the way of stockings. This year, the Field Office staff agreed to stuff stockings for the Safe Harbor children.

To raise funds for stocking stuffers, staff proposed the idea of a white elephant-type auction. What a hit! With the sale of $40 banana cream and lemon pies, baskets of freshly baked bread and homemade jam, and three...count them: three... specially built Adirondack chairs in the shape of fish - to be constructed by a HUD employee - the Alaska office raised $1,500 for the kids. Volunteer shoppers took shopping lists for the kids to the stores, and brought their treasures back for a stocking stuffer party. All stockings, and extra gifts that didn't fit into the stockings, were gleefully accepted by the children during a party at Safe Harbor, complete with an authentic Santa and Christmas cookies, two days before Christmas.