CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- “Really, what we do is connect people with disposable income with retailers and disadvantaged kids,” said Rich Gentile, a sports documentarian who first thought up Santa For A Day 20 years ago after seeing how many “letters to Santa” at Chicago’s Main Post Office were going unfulfilled.
“It devastated me that, you know, not everybody has the same Christmas that I do or that I grew up with or that my kids have," he said.
He didn’t put his idea into action until 2018, teaming up with the Chicago Housing Authority, which had kids write letters to Santa. Gentile made sure every child got a gift.
“We had a great year the first year, 1,900 letters in just a test year. And then, we grew it the next year and added Milwaukee and Detroit,” he said.
This year, Gentile said Santa For A Day added three more cities, working with public housing agencies in Philadelphia, Boston, and Atlanta. He expects to fulfill the wishes of about 5,000 children.
“This idea of helping people resonates,” he said.
Gentile hopes to take the program to 12-15 cities next year when he expects requests from around 10,000 children.
Gentile said his charity partners with Amazon, so children get exactly what they picked at santaforaday.net.
“You can read letters. You can look at the gift registry. It has all the gifts that have been requested by kids. It’s all categorized. ‘Hey, I want to buy something educational,’ you can click there. ‘I want to buy a video game for a kid,’ click there," he said.
Gentile said Christmastime can be a stressful time for low-income people. He said this year, especially, “We’ve all been impacted by COVID, but these kids have been ravaged.”
Rich Gentile is founder of Santa For A Day and is a Difference Maker.