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Photograph by New York Daily Photo
The U.S. Postal Service shut down its beloved Operation Santa program, where people can take letters to Santa written by needy children and send those kids gifts. The NY Times has the grim explanation:
A Postal Service official in Washington, after an initial, limited acknowledgment of a “privacy breach,” said that at one of the programs, not New York’s, a man whom a letter carrier recognized as a registered sex offender had “adopted” a letter. When postal officials confronted the man, the official said, he said he was sincerely trying to do a good deed, but postal inspectors nonetheless retrieved the letter and notified the family of the child.Oh, man. The U.S.P.S. tells the Times the program's closing might be temporary, with this possible reworking for Manhattan's program: "Names and addresses will be blacked out and letters will be numbered. Instead of sending gifts directly, gift-givers will need to take wrapped presents to the post office and provide the recipient’s number. The post office will then send them out."
In recent years, the U.S.P.S. started to require people hoping to fill out three-page indemnity forms and show ID. And last week's Christmas episode of 30 Rock featured a "Letters to Santa" program:
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30 Rock did a great expose on the "Santa" program last week. Should be required viewing.
True--I'll add that.
But overall, this makes me sad. I know the USPS, especially as a gov't agency, needs to protect itself, but so many kids and families received nice holiday surprises because the program.
thank god d*ck in a box jokes are dead and gone
for the record, when I went earlier this month, they did not ever ask to see my ID, though I did have to do the paperwork.
I've often participated in Op Santa, and it's a great program, but the 'holes' in it always made me nervous.
I mean: You'd get a kid's letter, with full name, home address and sometimes personal details (siblings' names, parents' situation, whatever). Some nut easily could use this info for bad reasons -- especially since the aspiring-Santa paperwork was minimal-to-fakeable.
I think the idea of the numbering system is really good. It's worth doing and keeping it more anonymous is a good idea.
As long as they haven't abolished the program entirely it's still a good thing to do. It'll be like... altruistic secret secret Santa. Good going USPS.
Just have a clearing house that distributes anonymous gifts to kids whose names and addresses are kept confidential.
Sounds like they made the right decision. There's no reason the gift-givers need to receive the personal information of the needy child they are helping.
I have done secret santa for a couple of years, (winter wishes for annoying pc crowd) and every year it seems the letters become less genuine and looks to be written by some adult pretending to be a kid. I bet most of these toys and clothes are resold on ebay by these so call "kids." Time to shut this sham operation down!
PS - I agree with two points:
#1, they made the right decision here - i.e., to keep names/addresses private.
#2, as "dude69" noted: Some letters do look iffy.
-- It's 100% fine if the adult writes "as if" it's coming from the child when (a) the child can't write clearly, or (b) the adult doesn't want to get the kid's hopes up (so he-she is writing secretly, on the child's behalf).
-- And it would be hard to turn Op Santa into a major racket, since I'm sure that many letters are unanswered.
But I _have_ been perturbed by the increase in requests - many adult-written - for only very specific, 'way-expensive stuff. (One Santa letter I rec'd had only two items - but if I'd filled the request to a 'T,' it would have cost $500+.)
Despite which, it's better to pick a letter (and use your innate BS detector), take the risk, and do something.