Around Christmastime each year, the North Pole is flooded with mail from children all over the world.
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Green Hills Community’s DayBreak client Gladys Stockton of Lakeview reads letters to Santa that were received at the center from about 500 school children in Clark County. The volunteer “elves” then write letters back to the classrooms. (PHOTO | GREEN HILLS COMMUNITY) |
In a festive living room located at Green Hills Community near West Liberty, elves are helping out by responding to some of those letters.
The elves are clients in the DayBreak adult day service program who have read about 500 letters this year from students at Park Layne Elementary School, which houses kindergarten and first-grade in the Tecumseh School District in New Carlisle.
DayBreak is a daytime program that is open five days a week for those who live at home, but don’t want to be home alone during the day while their families are working or need a break in caregiving.
For the past several years, various schools in Clark County, as part of an annual reading project, have been writing letters to Santa. The best part is that Santa sends reply letters to the classroom.
Surely, Santa’s elves are not able to respond to every letter, so they write a letter that is unique to each classroom. One classroom will receive a letter where Santa is asking what a student is going to be watching with his night vision goggles when he is supposed to be sleeping.
Another classroom will receive an apology that it is not possible to deliver “real live dragons” from the North Pole because they want to melt all the snow.
Along with the return letter from Santa, each child in the class receives a bookmark made by the DayBreak elves in hopes of encouraging them to continue their love for reading.
“After our students receive the letters and bookmarks from Santa (elves in DayBreak) and Christmas break is over, the classroom teachers will compose one letter per class thanking Santa for the gifts given to each student this Christmas. I will then send those letters to Green Hills DayBreak in early January,” explained Gaybrielle Ray, librarian at Park Layne Elementary. She also is the wife of Green Hills Community president and CEO, Mike Ray.
“On behalf of our administration (Karyl Strader, principal), staff and students, we greatly appreciate this act of kindness and love from the DayBreak clients and staff of the Green Hills Community.”
Not only is it rewarding for the students and staff, the clients in DayBreak also enjoy it.
“I’m glad to help all the kids any way that I can,” said Gladys Stockton, a DayBreak client who lives in Lakeview.