Forgotten Children's Fund remembers in its 30th year

EDITOR'S NOTE: For a quarter-century, Seattle P-I 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 this year's beneficiaries: The Forgotten Children's Fund.

They call it the Forgotten Children's Fund, but for more than 50,000 kids since 1976, the charity has made Christmas unforgettable.

The organization has a simple mission: providing a "real" Christmas -- new coats, toys and books -- to low-income children who otherwise might not receive anything for the holiday, much less gifts chosen especially for them.

The story of how the fund began sounds nearly apocryphal: A boy named Craig scrawled a poignant, misspelled letter to Santa Claus that somehow arrived at the old Francisco's restaurant in Seattle.

Craig said his mom told her children that Santa "got lost" the previous year and might lose his way again. The boy said he and his younger sisters had been "very good" and gave Santa a map. He also said not to bring anything for his dad because "he isn't hear anymore."

The restaurant patrons couldn't find Craig, but some of them started what became the Forgotten Children's Fund, one of the charities that benefit from the Readers Care Fund drive of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

"We're guessing that Craig is probably 35 or 36 now," said John O'Brien, president of the Forgotten Children's Fund and successor to longtime president Larry Longfelder. "The letter had 13 words misspelled in it, so he was probably a youngster and not particularly well educated at the time."

If Craig could be found today, "we'd say 'thank you,' because (he) was the impetus" for the charity, now in its 30th season, O'Brien said.

The Forgotten Children's Fund raises money to buy gifts at wholesale and seeks donations of bikes and other items, all of which are sorted, assembled and wrapped by up to 1,000 volunteers at a warehouse.

The charity started by serving about a dozen families. Last year, it helped nearly 800 families with 3,000 children. Home deliveries of gifts and food are made in five counties by dozens of Santas on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

"Unfortunately, 800 families are only 25 percent of the requests," O'Brien said. "We wish we could do more, but we don't want to get out of our ability to do it right."

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The charity, which operates on a budget of about $175,000, receives thousands of requests annually. Most of the letters begin, "I am a single mother." Referrals come from social service groups, churches, state agencies, battered women's shelters and other organizations.

The charity's screening committee goes through the requests, using a set of criteria to identify the neediest families.

"We've always tried to fill a niche for what we call the working poor," Longfelder said, those "who are working but are struggling to make ends meet on minimum wages or low wages without benefits."

Addresses and names are cross-referenced to try to make sure that the same families aren't assisted two years in a row.

Screeners call the families to find out the children's names, ages, sizes and preferences. Volunteers individually select gifts for each family member.

"We get volunteers from 6 years old to 80, even 90, from all walks of life," said Debbie Acton, who coordinates the army of helpers. "It takes a whole crew to put bikes together. They wrap thousands and thousands of gifts."

Acton started when her daughter was 6 and her son was 4, believing it was "a very good way to make them understand that everyone didn't have the same Christmas they had." Her children, now 22 and 20, have been volunteering ever since.

"My story is not unique," Acton said. "There are a lot of families who have been doing this for years and years and years."

The gifts for each recipient's family are placed in a bag and tagged, ready for delivery.

"Some years you see the ordinary poor," said O'Brien, who has been a Santa for 29 years. "Some years the poorer poor. And some years you run into extraordinary things."

Each Santa makes deliveries to about 12 to 16 homes from morning to night, using borrowed trucks and volunteer drivers. Once at a home, they try to get in and out in less than 10 minutes.

"We want it to be their Christmas, not ours," O'Brien said. "A lot of tears come out in these visits. You can see the gratefulness in their eyes, especially in the mothers'. Maybe for the first time, their youngsters will have a true Christmas.

"Santa gets hugged a lot."

P-I reporter Angela Galloway contributed to this report. P-I reporter John Iwasaki can be reached at 206-448-8096 or johniwasaki@seattlepi.com.

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