Presents From Robbie '15

How did this start?

Four years ago, one night in November, Rob and I were building something in the workshop, when he starts talking about what it's like to be a foster kid during the holidays.

He said one year, at one family, he had to sit under the tree, on Christmas morning, and be happy for the biological kids who were opening presents, but he received nothing.

But even when he was with better families, he said the holidays were tough because the ads and everything is all about family. And it just reminds the kids every time that they don't have a family.

So he and I decided to fix it.

Last year, we started a Secret Santa program where we match up Secret Santas with foster kids. The state children's agency helps by getting foster kids to fill out a wish list, then we match each kid with a Secret Santa.

Last year, we received wish lists from about 50 kids and we matched every kid with a Santa.

This year, we had 284 Secret Santas for 136 children. The santas purchased more than 1,300 presents. Each child had at least two Secret Santas.

Next year, we plan to match a Secret Santa with every teen in foster care in Delaware.

This is what makes us different

Our program asks each child to fill out a detailed wish list. Then, that child is matched with a Secret Santa, who goes shopping for that specific child, holding a wish list in the child's own handwriting. Every teen in foster care in Delaware filled out a wish list like this one, this year, thanks to the foster care case workers across the state. In all, we received 151 wish lists. Our program focuses on teens because the younger children are served by Toys for Tots.

Another wish list

All this little girl wanted was a nice jacket...

What is Presents From Robbie?

In short, Presents From Robbie matches teens in foster care with a Secret Santa. Each child fills out a wish list, which is given to the Secret Santa.

In our third year, we matched every teen in foster care in Delaware, with at least two Secret Santas.

Each child received at least 10 presents, resulting in about 1,800 presents being given to foster teens.

Wrapping Presents

Many Santas sent in photos of them wrapping presents.

Notice the half-full glass of wine?

These presents from just one Santa

360 Secret Santas

Present from Saudia Arabia

One Santa, from Saudi Arabia, sent their child a hand-made sketch pad, with hand-made paper.

Santas

This year, we had a total of 360 Secret Santas for a 151 children, which means that every foster kid had two Santas, and about 60 kids had three Santas.

These presents were from the Smyrna Clayton Running Club.
They were the Secret Santas for several different kids. Each kid had bag full of wrapped presents.

All of the presents from just one Secret Santa.

A drop-off location

My office was one of eight locations in the state where people could drop off presents. It quickly became too full. We had to start filling a vacant office with presents.

My office began to look like the North Pole.

Wrapping, Sorting and Shipping

On Saturday, Dec. 12th, at DelDOT headquarters in Dover, we brought all of the presents together, wrapped, then sorted them according to child, then loaded them all onto trailers.

About 25 volunteers came to help as we wrapped and sorted an estimated 1,800 presents for 151 kids in foster care.

This photo shows DelDOT's large conference room full of people who are wrapping those presents that came to us unwrapped.

In the dark shirt, on the right, with with the short blonde hair, is my boss's boss, the Secretary of DelDOT, Jennifer Cohan. She had come to work that day, saw what we were doing, and spent a few hours wrapping presents.

About one third of the presents needed to be wrapped. But that's fine. Wrapping all of these presents is one of the best parts of this entire effort.

Dukes Lumber is awesome

Dukes Lumber donated the use of a large enclosed truck. This is their truck arriving from Sussex County, with all of the presents purchased by Secret Santas in Sussex County.

So, if you need lumber or building supplies, go to Dukes Lumber. Ask for Kolby Dukes.
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Another truckload of presents getting dropped off.

Starting to sort the presents

We took over the parking lot and sorted the presents according to the foster child.

That way, when we are done sorting them all, we can see which children didn't get much, and we could add a few of the generic presents to the piles of those children.

DSCYF heroes

I want to point out two people in this photo who deserve special recognition. On the left, in the orange shirt, is Joseph Smack. Across from him, in the green sweater is Kate Maurer.

Without these two people, this would not happen. Both of them work at DSCYF, and spent months gathering all of the wish lists from all of the case workers, tracking down a case worker if a Secret Santa needs more information. Seriously, these two people are amazing.

I wore a Cubs shirt to wrapping and sorting day to honor my Dad, who gave me that shirt.

Sorry about the flash....

"Hey everyone look like you are doing something!"

Delivering presents to the case workers

It is a group event!

A family event.

My daughter

She spent most of the afternoon wrapping presents for one child.

Lonely present...

Slowly coming in now...

Bike #1

This is the first year that we had a kid get a bike. We had three this year.

Presents waiting to be sorted.

Tables full of gifts!!!

Spidey Gift

We were given lots and lots of wrapping paper.

We were given far more than we needed. I think we're good for next year, as well.

Bike #2

It is starting to fill out.

Getting impressive.

Volunteer Sorting

We had about 20 people show up to help, many of whom spent all day walking back and forth in a large parking lot, distributing presents.

OMG! Yes please!

Courtesy of Betsy Price, an awesome elf

... I hope there is a nice jacket in one of those 15 boxes!

More pressents

Someone asked for a little friend their age on their wish list. I'm impressed the Santa delivered.

Tons of left over wrapping paper (more not pictured)!!

Parking lot full of gifts.

A tall person must have taken these pictures. What a great angle!

This isn't even all the gifts outside yet!

A trailer full of gifts that arrived, ready to be wrapped and sorted.

So much room left...

6:30pm the final bike goes into the trailer! Job well done everyone!

Delivering presents

Monday, Dec. 14th, we headed out to deliver all of the presents to the offices of the case workers.

On the left, is the trailer heading to New Castle County, and on the right, the trailer heading to Kent County.

We each had a 24' trailer that was full of presents.

Shown (from l-r) is Robbie Westhoff, myself, and Rob Halley. Robbie and I delivered to New Castle County, while Rob Halley took a day of vacation to deliver presents to Kent County.

Delivering presents to the case workers

Delivering presents to the case workers

Delivering presents to the case workers

Delivering presents to the case workers

Delivering presents to the case workers

Delivering presents to the case workers

Delivering presents to the case workers

Delivering presents to the case workers

Delivering presents to the case workers

Unwrapped gifts.

Delivering presents to the case workers

Delivering presents to the case workers

More presents to be wrapped

More...

A lady in Newark said she wanted to help, so she sent this to us.

Thank you notes are coming

Each foster child will be asked to write a quick thank you note to his or her Secret Santas. When they come back, we will be sharing those notes here, with the Secret Santas, and everyone else.