A moment with ... Larry Longfelder, Forgotten Children's Fund

EDITOR'S NOTE: For a quarter-century, Seattle Post-Intelligencer readers have donated generously to the newspaper's annual Readers Care Fund drive, generating more than $5 million for local charities. Today, we look at one of the charities benefiting this year: the Forgotten Children's Fund.

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Each year, hundreds of children rely on volunteer Santas for the holiday gifts that their families cannot afford. Larry Longfelder, a longtime leader of this merry band of gift givers, explains how it all started and why.

How did you become involved with the Forgotten Children's Fund?

I don't have any children, and my wife and I don't celebrate Christmas -- I have a Jewish heritage, and my wife is of the Jewish faith. So in 1979, we decided this was something we could do because we didn't have any plans for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Once you've done it, you're kind of hooked. When you go into the house and you look in those kids' eyes, they think you are the real Santa Claus. And, at that moment, you are.

How did Forgotten Children's Fund start?

It started in 1975 with a letter sent to a restaurant by a little boy named Craig. It was addressed to Santa and said, "You didn't come last year, and Mom says you probably won't find us this year either." It was a very poignant, sad letter. People tried to track Craig down, but couldn't find him. But they did find 20 families that wouldn't have had anything for Christmas without their help.

How many families have been helped through the years because of Craig's letter?

It's grown quite a bit. Since 1990, we've visited about 500 families a year. Since the beginning, I'd say we've provided Christmas for at least 7,500 to 8,000 families.

What does Forgotten Children's Fund do?

Each child gets a warm jacket and one major wrapped present, along with some other minor presents. The screeners find out ahead of time what the kids want. It is all new toys -- the same kind and quality of toys you'd be giving your own family. In fact, back when Cabbage Patch Kids were so popular, we had them and no one else did. We couldn't get them wholesale, so our volunteers went out and found them in retail stores. Instead of giving them to their own families, the volunteers gave them to us.

And how do the toys make it to the kids?

We have probably in excess of 500 volunteers who come to wrap presents. Then on Christmas Eve, we have 35 to 40 volunteer Santa Clauses in full outfits, and each of them has six to eight elves. In addition to the toys and jackets, each family gets a box of food.

How do you find the families you're going to serve?

What usually happens is: People get referred to us by Seattle low-income housing, visiting nurses, schools and other people in the community. We get thousands of letters from people referring families or asking for help for themselves. Each letter is read and the potential recipients are screened. We keep a list of people we've been to in previous years, and we don't go to the same family twice if we can avoid it.

Are you able to help everyone who meets your screening criteria each year?

I can say this emphatically: There is a lot more need than we can fill.

FORGOTTEN CHILDREN'S FUND

Mission: Providing a real Christmas -- including wrapped gifts, coats and food -- for kids in King, Pierce and Island counties who would otherwise be forgotten.
Number served: 2,000 to 2,500 kids in about 500 families.
Annual budget: $180,000.
Funding from Readers Care: About 28 percent.