Thirty years ago, social work graduate students Patricia “Trisha” Rae and Laura Alston visited a dead letter office in New York and decided to respond to a child’s letter to Santa Claus. Stepping into the role of Santa’s helpers, the two women connected with the boy’s mom and gifted him a new coat and gloves, despite his insistence that he needed an Atari, a popular gaming system at the time.
After answering that first letter, the duo felt called to start Christmas Is For Children, a nonprofit that hosts food drives and angel tree programs for families and children in need in multiple states. While Laura stayed in the Northeast to run Christmas Is For Children in New Jersey, Trisha moved to Southlake in 1997 and brought the nonprofit with her, serving nearly 70,000 kids over the course of its 20-plus years in Texas.
A HEART FOR SERVICE
Growing up, Trisha’s family was middle class and didn’t have to worry about where their next meal was coming from. But after her parents divorced when she was a teenager, she and her four siblings decided to stay with their mom. That was when their financial situation took a hit.
Unable to afford a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, Trisha’s family found out from a fellow parishioner that they were put on their church’s list to receive a holiday food basket.
“My mother told us, ‘Nope, we’re not going to get that food basket. It can go to somebody else,’” Trisha says.
Nevertheless, the church’s generosity found its way to Trisha’s family. A congregation member came to their house, bringing several boxes and bags of food.
“After the man from our church left, my mom closed the door and she just broke into tears,” Trisha says. “She was so grateful, and she couldn’t show it to the man at the time because she was so embarrassed. It was such a humbling experience as a teenager. It stuck with me forever.”
Witnessing that moment changed Trisha’s life forever.
“I knew in high school that when I got older, when I was able to do something to give back, that’s exactly what I wanted to do,” Trisha says.
That drive led Trisha to pursue a degree in social work where, as a graduate student with a newborn son at home, she and fellow classmate Laura went to a dead letter office in 1991 to try to make a child’s Christmas wish come true.
“We were able to get four or five of those [dead] letters, and one of the letters came from a little boy in Newark, New Jersey,” Trisha says. “We were lucky enough at the time that he put his mom’s name on there and her phone number.”
Using the contact information included in the letter, Trisha and Laura connected with the boy’s family. Talking with his mother over the phone, the two learned the boy needed a new coat and gloves.
“And I could hear this little boy yelling in the background, ‘Please! Not a coat! Not a coat!’” Trisha says.
Helping that first child inspired Christmas Is For Children’s first initiative — its angel tree program, where each angel sponsor purchased a child something they want, something they need and something educational.
Trisha’s experiences with food insecurity influenced another aspect of Christmas Is For Children — its food drives.
“I thought, “What is it that I would want to receive if I was ever in that position again?’” Trisha says. “That’s why we came up with laundry baskets.”
Both sturdy enough to hold food and supplies and a nice gift for a family in need, Christmas Is For Children started giving away its donations in laundry baskets during its drives.
“From my own experiences, I always wanted to take the shame and the embarrassment out of receiving food,” Trisha says.
In its second year of operation, Christmas Is For Children grew from serving two families to 750 — partly thanks to a fundraiser in partnership with the NFL’s New York Giants.
From that point on, Trisha says the organization has never provided for less than 1,000 children a year.
CONNECTING WITH A NEW COMMUNITY
After six years of serving the New Jersey area, Trisha’s husband took a new job in Dallas and the family relocated to Southlake. With the move, she created a second branch of Christmas Is For Children, working with the local community to grow the nonprofit to what it is today.
Starting out fresh in Texas, Trisha first connected with neighbors about Christmas Is For Children. But real growth came a year later when she partnered with Carroll ISD and the other local school districts. From putting angel trees in schools to hosting contests between campuses to see who could collect the most cereal boxes, the schools have been an integral part of the nonprofit’s growth.
In fact, it was Trisha’s appearance at a Durham Intermediate School PTO meeting that led Ann Breeding to volunteer with the organization, ultimately serving as its co-chair for nearly seven years.
“We were the volunteers at Durham for several years,” Ann says. “We would get our list of angels… and find sponsors for them. We would collect the bags of angel gifts from all the sponsors and deliver them to the storage facility.”
Around 2009, after serving as a volunteer and with her youngest attending school, Ann increased her involvement with Christmas Is For Children and became a co-chair. In fact, Ann’s work with the organization changed her perspective on the holiday season.
Ann says it made Christmas “a whole lot less about the stuff and a whole lot more about the reason.”
Another connection that helped grow Christmas Is For Children was its partnership with St. John Baptist Church, which has locations in Southlake and Grand Prairie.
“Community is a big part of what we do,” Rev. Elena Carraway says. “It was a natural fit.”
Through its partnership with St. John, Christmas Is For Children hosts gift distributions, donates food bags to people without housing and gives senior living centers toiletries and comfort items for its residents.
“Over the last few years, [it] has extended beyond Christmas,” Rev. Elena says.
During the height of the pandemic, for example, St. John and Christmas Is For Children came together for food distribution and back-to-school events.
“Because CIFC had a community of agencies it was involved in, it was a natural extension for not only the church to roll up our sleeves and do a little bit more, but to bring some of those agencies into the partnerships that we were already involved in,” Rev. Elena says.
For the volunteers who help out with these events, the feeling of giving back is contagious.
“Many of them have never done anything like that before. And so the first time they get involved, you see it in their faces. You see it in their eyes — their energy, their passion,” Rev. Elena says. “It becomes contagious because they share it with others, and then they get involved.”
A MERRY AND BRIGHT FUTURE
After 30 years of helping nearly 100,00 people in multiple states, Christmas Is For Children’s mission of giving back continues to live on.
“It’s a tremendous testimony not only to Trisha but also to all of those who have come alongside her for these 30 years to make all of this possible,” Rev. Elena says.
Though the pandemic limits the scale of Christmas Is For Children’s programs, it still plans to help as many families as it can this year. Sponsors can pick angels and drop off gifts at sites throughout the month, and its annual Christmas food drive is set for Dec. 18.
“It [is] such a beautiful way to start the holiday season,” Ann says. “It really put everything in perspective to see the generosity and that people were shopping for these angels before they were doing their own shopping.”
Though she recognizes how meaningful 30 years is, Trisha is very humble about the milestone.
“We want people to feel part of something bigger than themselves because even though I started Christmas Is For Children, it’s not about me and it never has been,” Trisha says. “The story is mine. But reaching out to others is universal.”
While the holiday season is at the heart of Christmas Is For Children’s work, Trisha reiterates how much of the nonprofit is about simply caring.
“It’s so much bigger than just buying toys,” Trisha says. “It’s about allowing people to know that they matter. And I think the reason that we all keep doing what we do is [because] it’s about letting people know that they’re going to be seen. People want to be seen.”