Location: Macy’s, Water Tower Place
Date: November & December 2014
Yes
Virginia, there is a Santa Claus
 |
| Yes Virginia |
It was time.
I had written to Dana at MAW months ago asking to participate again this
year. This time I requested the State
Street branch since I had moved to the South loop. She warned me that it receives the most
number of letters, but I said that I would manage. Later, when MAW put the stores on their
website, State Street was missing, since it had already been assigned to me. I left messages and sent email to my contact
at Macy’s, but never heard back. In any case, I just decided to show up on my first
assigned week.
“I
need a home to live in. Me and my family
are homeless. Please help.”
The State Street Macy’s is a huge
store, covering the entire block. I
arrived and saw that the ‘HR’ offices
were on the 8th floor and even then it took me a long time to locate
it. As I went inside, they of course
weren’t expecting me and it took some convincing on my part for them to
dispatch someone to get the letters. After
waiting for some time a gentleman finally arrived and he was carrying bag full
of letters, which he said had been collected from 2 of the 3 mailboxes in the
store. I went home and counted them, and
in just 2 days we had collected 266 letters.
It definitely seemed like it was going to be a heavy load this year.
“I
want all dogs and cats and all animals to be safe from abuse”
I went on Monday to drop these
off and was back at Macy’s the following weekend. Once again, they weren’t ready for me, but
they found a lady who said that she would go and collect all of the letters
from the 3 mailboxes. I told her that I would
walk with her and so we armed ourselves with garbage bags and went to the box
on the 7th floor. I saw that
some kids were sitting at a table nearby writing letters and it was a shame
that they had to see me open the box and collect the deposit. Any notions that they may have had of seeing
an ‘Elf’ do this job would have been
shattered. But I had my own problems,
for there were hundreds of letters in there.
The lady next to me shook her head and we both knew that we were in for
the long haul.
“Don’t
let my girlfriend go to Mexico. I love her”
Next stop was the 5th floor and
this one was full as well. The bags were
already heavy before we got to the box in the basement and once we had
collected the hundreds that were in there, we had to “triple bag” everything. By this time it was as heavy and bulky as
Santa’s bag usually is and I struggled to get it home on the train. It took me almost the entire Sunday’s football
schedule to count the 1600 letters that I had collected that day.
“I
have a heart condition and need a place to stay”
Typically, in the past years when
I have delivered the letters to MAW offices, I have taken them in the Macy’s
bags in which they have been collected.
This time, with the sheer volume, I had to put them in a suitcase and
wheel them to my office and later to MAW.
I met Dana and told her that something had to be done since I couldn’t deal
with the increasing volume leading up to Christmas. Dana agreed and said that I should wait till ‘Believe’ day, when we were expecting
over 15,000 letters at State Street branch alone! She said that she would call Macy’s and see
if they can provide some help, at least in terms of ensuring that all the
letters are collected and ready for pickup.
Thankfully this was the case when I went over the next weekend and a giant
bag was ready for my pickup. In the end
it was still a lot to carry and it totaled 1250 when I counted the next day.
“For
Christmas can I please have…well can you please make no one in my family go to
the hospital”
When I was at MAW ‘Festival of Thanksgiving’, one of my
fellow volunteers mentioned that he had been collecting at State Street the
previous year and had to use a car to deal with the volumes. He said that he would invite his friends over
for a “counting party” because there
was no other way to get it done in a timely manner. I dropped off the latest batch at MAW and wrote
to Dana asking if we could think of a strategy to provide me some
assistance. She called me a bit later
and said that MAW would be handling the collection from now until the end of
the season, considering that it was almost impossible for one person to do it without a car. Plus, she said
that they would follow my suggestion of opening up the counting as a separate volunteer
opportunity for people to show up at their offices and count.
“I
want my dog to live longer”
I was disappointed that I would
not be able to complete the program this year.
It was not just my responsibility, but also my privilege to have been
associated with this initiative and it felt as if I had let MAW down, though I
really hadn’t. But my involvement wasn’t
really over since there was a small matter of my own wish.
“I
would like to be happy at New Year and not feel so tired all the time”
As with previous years, I had
picked the ‘National Believe Day’ on
December 12th for my wish but as it got closer, I wasn’t sure if I
would get the time to do it that day. I
was near ‘Water Tower Place’ on the
11th and so went inside Macy’s to make my wish. Near the mailbox they had set up merchandise
to celebrate the occasion, including DVD of ‘Yes
Virginia’ as well as books and Christmas Tree Ornaments. I picked up a postcard, but try as I may I
couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make my
wish. That evening I came back and
watched the ‘Yes Virginia’ short film
for the umpteenth time and once again realized what a special occasion this
entire thing is.
“I've got a wonderful family and toys and everything I have is good enough”
On 12th I sent Dana an email thanking
them for everything that MAW does this season. “It's a special day for not just us at MAW, but for everyone who is
united in one belief that there is some good in the world and there is always
something to hope for. I was at Macy's yesterday and picked up my
"Virginia Christmas Tree Ornament" and will be going back later today
to write my letter. Happy National Believe Day to all of you and thank you for
everything that you do to make wishes come to life.” She wrote back saying that it was indeed a
special day and over 50 wishes were happening all across the nation today. She
then thanked me for supporting their mission and the children. Now there was just one thing left.
“Please
visit all those children who are sick or have no one to visit them for
Christmas”
I went to State Street Macy’s
over lunch and as I stood next to the mailbox watching some kids writing their
wish, it hit me. I knew exactly what I
wanted and as with the year's before, I wrote it down, put to my heart and made my
wish. Yeah, so I had not been able to
finish what I had started, but that is a small thing in the grand scheme of
things. Once again, I had seen letters of kindness and generosity. Yes, there were many that were cries for help, but there was hope in there as well. Over a hundred years ago one man
had told a little girl that there was something magical in this world if you
believed in it. I had believed in the
power of a wish, just as these people had. And after all that I
have been through with MAW; like Virginia I still believe that there is a Santa
Claus.
“I
just want to be happy and loved for a very very very long time”
No comments:
Post a Comment