Yes, Virginia, Santa Will be Visiting the Bay Area

Letters to Santa Program Alive and Well in San Francisco and Oakland

SAN FRANCISCO — More than 100 years ago, the U.S. Postal Service began receiving letters addressed simply to Santa Claus. In 1912, Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock authorized local postmasters to allow Postal employees and citizens to respond to these letters to Santa – this became known as Operation Santa. In the 1940s, mail volume for Santa increased so much that the Postal Service invited charitable organizations and corporations to participate by providing written responses and small gifts.

The Letters to Santa Program has been a long standing holiday tradition with the Postal Service, however this year, because of an unfortunate incident in 2008, the program has changed to better protect children. Unfortunately, the changes made the program a great deal more labor intensive for the Postal Service, and many Post Offices nationwide will not be participating, however in the Bay Area, two Post Offices will be offering the public an opportunity to take part in the Letters to Santa Program.

Beginning in December, customers, charitable organizations and businesses will once again be able to adopt letters from children or families that may need some extra help during the holidays. The difference this year is that those adopting letters will not know the address of the child or family, and will have to make a return trip to the Post Office to mail the letter or parcel.

Individuals interested in adopting a letter can visit either the San Francisco Post Office, 1300 Evans Ave., San Francisco, or the Oakland Post Office, 201 13th St., Oakland to select letters. The letters will have concealed personal information and a code number assigned. If the individual is interested in mailing a response or a gift to the child, they must return with the adopted letter or package and present them to a Postal clerk, who will match the number on the letter with the child’s address, weigh the package and collect the postage from the customer. The Postal Service will affix the mailing label and send the letter or package on its way.

This year, the number of Post Offices nationwide that are participating in the program has been greatly reduced, primarily because of the increased cost of protecting the children’s privacy. Our goals this year are simple – to ensure the safety of children and continue the goodwill this program provides to so many families and communities around the nation during the holiday season.

For the nationwide list of participating Post Offices, customers can go to usps.com/holidays.

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A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars. With 36,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, the Postal Service relies on the sale of postage, products and services to pay for operating expenses. Named the Most Trusted Government Agency five consecutive years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $68 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 26th in the 2008 Fortune 500.