“Dear Father Christmas,” the letter reads, “my name is Larissa. I know that you are very busy and that you live a long way away in the North Pole, but I’d like to ask you for a gift because my mother doesn’t have enough money to buy what I want.”
There are piles of similar letters — many decorated with stickers, drawings and hand prints — lying on makeshift tables in the main hall of the post office in downtown Sao Paulo.
Another letter, this one from a 10-year-old boy, reads: “My mother died when I was a young baby. I live with my brother and my father. But this Christmas he can’t work because he’s in the hospital.”
The way it works, de Sa says, is that you come here, read the letters and look for something that really affects you. Then you buy the gift that the child asks for and bring it back to the post office, where staff wrap it up and deliver it to the child.
“It’s something that just shocks you, and it makes me sad, too,” she says.
Other letters have asked for help for crack-addicted parents or jobs for unemployed relatives.
Elizabeth Aragao says she always chooses gifts for small children.
“I cry reading the letters,” she says. “We try and help a little. If everyone helped a little, the world would be a better place.”
And that is the idea behind the program, which is sponsored by Brazil’s post office and has been going on for more than 20 years.
Source: npr.org
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