Project Santa: A Community Helping Each Other Out
IGA Christmas Tree decorated with sponsorship tags. Photo by Shilah Butler
Michelle McAfee - CRR Staff
Most people, at some point in life, fall on hard times. In the Copper Basin, if hard times come during the holiday season, Project Santa is there to lend a hand and make sure kids in the community receive presents for Christmas.
Beginning after the Thanksgiving holiday, if you walk into the IGA in Glennallen, you will see a Christmas tree with cards or “tags” scattered among the tinsel and blue, green, and gold ornaments hanging from the branches.
The tags hold the wants and needs of kids in the community. A parent or guardian can fill out a simple application to get a tag for their child. No financial information is requested. Only the parent’s name, phone number, children’s age, clothing sizes, and themed fill-in-the- blanks for Santa: something you want, something you need, something you wear, something you read.
Shilah Butler, Project Santa coordinator, then transfers the information onto an anonymous tag. For example the tag for, Family #2 may read: Girl age 3, size 5T, shoe 6, loves dress-up baby dolls, Baby Shark & books. Needs clothes and shoes.
Anyone in the community can walk into IGA, pull a tag from the tree to sponsor a child, and go shopping to fulfill the wishes or wants on the tag. Those items are returned to Shilah Butler, who delivers them to the child’s family before Christmas.
Project Santa tags posted on Shilah Butler’s Facebook page help connect families in need with presents for their children.
Butler said, “Some years a family will be on there once, and the next year they’ll pull tags for another family.” Other times families are on the tree for multiple years if they continue to need help.
Applicants are asked to keep their wants and wish list in the thirty to fifty dollar range. Butler has a stockpile of things to fill gaps and shops for sale items year-round. Her main focus is on snow and winter gear, which are common items requested by families.
Last March, Butler found heavy-duty snow pants, coats, and hats for five dollars each. She had to rent a U-Haul to get home because she bought so much, knowing a lot of kids would need gear for winter.
Project Santa is the community helping each other out. Some people pull tags to sponsor a child, others reach out to Butler directly and donate money, saying, “Here, shop for me. I hate shopping.” Either way, she is happy to oblige.
Other people call wanting to donate a pair of shoes, a jacket their kids have out-grown, or diapers too small for their kid to wear anymore. Butler is grateful for all donations but checks in ahead of time with families about gifting used gear. She said families have never turned it down and are always appreciative.
Butler also has friends and family who live “outside” and will sponsor a kid by ordering from Amazon and having it shipped to her house. She displays tags on her Facebook page so people outside of Alaska or the Copper Basin can sponsor a child.
“I almost feel guilty because I get to be the person in the middle who sees all this generosity from people who give, and also thankfulness and gratefulness of people who receive. ”
Project Santa would not be able to buy as much as they do every year without funding from sponsors like the Copper River Basin Regional Housing Authority, where Butler works, the Lions Club, American Legion, and Copper Valley Telecom.
The Pregnancy Center supports Project Santa by giving Butler a key. If she needs to fill a tag for a baby, she has access to whatever clothing and gear she needs. Heike Wilmouth at New To You Thrift Store lets Butler have whatever she needs when applications come in, especially close to Christmas.
Butler buys all the books used. At Value Village, she can get boxes of books for $1.25 each, rather than spending $16 on one book.
As the Christmas holiday approaches, Butler and her husband deliver the gifts to homes. Wells Fargo and The Housing Authority offer public space for those who prefer to pick up packages. It sounds like a lot of work every year. Why does she do it?
“I almost feel guilty because I get to be the person in the middle who sees all this generosity from people who give, and also thankfulness and gratefulness of people who receive. Whether you believe in God or Santa or believe people are good - you see it over and over in this program. On Christmas Day, I get many texts and messages about kids opening presents.”
“Things always work out,” said Butler. For example, one year, a fifteen-year-old girl called and asked if she had presents for her little brother. The name was familiar, but there wasn’t an application for them. It was a couple of days before Christmas. Butler panicked.
She had the young girl fill out an application for herself and her little brother, who asked for a purple mini iPod. Usually Butler would call the parent and say she could not buy that item locally and ask that they request a different item.
Stressed and unsure what to do since this was a kid applying for her little brother, Butler looked on Amazon and couldn’t get it shipped, and no one was going to Anchorage in time to get it back to the Basin before Christmas.
Butler was venting to a coworker when an acquaintance walked in and said he was selling raffle tickets for his son’s hockey team. He said, “I got a deal for you. If you purchase two raffle tickets, I’ll trade you this iPod I just won in another raffle. It’s purple. I have no use for it.”
Butler laughed and said, “What are the chances in the world that would ever happen? So I bought a $20 raffle ticket, and my coworker bought a $20 raffle ticket, and we got the kid the purple mini iPod he asked for.”
The girl who filled out that application now works directly with Butler for Project Santa. Like many other kids who received gifts, the girl is now a grown-up and pulls tags for other kids.
“I have one girl who lives outside the area and works in Anchorage. She has a family of her own now, but every year she pulls a tag for a girl who is the same age she was when she was in the program, about nine or ten years old, and buys everything on the list. For me, those are the really fun things to see,” said Butler. She has been running Project Santa for over fifteen years.
“She has a family of her own now, but every year she pulls a tag for a girl who is the same age she was when she was in the program, about nine or ten years old, and buys everything on the list. ”
In 2003, Butler worked for Copper Valley Telecom and delivered food baskets on CVT’s behalf for Project Candy Kids. In 2005 she got a call from Janet Becker, whom she credits with starting Project Santa. Becker had a family emergency that year and asked Butler to take it over.
CVT sponsored Butler that year and every year after, filling in gaps with funding if Butler didn’t have enough donations to serve every child’s tag. Copper Valley Electric helped as well during that time. Seven or eight years ago, Butler took it over independently and has been doing it out of her house ever since.
Sheila Jordan, one of Butler’s coworkers in the early Project Santa days, ran Angel Tree in Valdez for twenty years. Jordan showed Butler how to do it and would bring a bunch of toys to the Basin that she and her daughter bought throughout the year for Butler’s project. They began a partnership between Angel Tree in Valdez and Project Santa in the Basin.
Last year, Providence Hospital took over Angel Tree in Valdez. Jordan is now involved in the Women’s Auxiliary to the Fraternal Order of Eagles in Valdez and continues to help Butler get sponsorships and extra funding.
Butler’s voice lit up when she said, “Sheila Jordan and her daughter Stacey called me from Walmart last week and said, ‘Barbies are on sale for $2, how many should we get?’”
The Christmas tree will go up at IGA after Thanksgiving, so keep an eye out and grab a tag if you can. Drop some change in a donation jar by the cash registers, or donate items directly to Butler to gift to families who could use them.
Project Santa Tags on the IGA Christmas Tree. Photo by Shilah Butler
Butler currently has 14 families and 15 tags on her Facebook page. By December, when most of the applications come in, she will have 40 to 50 families and about 150 kids who need presents.
If you have children and need help giving them presents for Christmas, Butler urges you to fill out an application. The earlier, the easier for Project Santa to deliver.
Applications are around town at places like IGA, the post office, and the Housing Authority. Or, on a piece of paper, write down your name, phone number, child’s size, and something they want, need, wear, or read. Take a photo of the paper and text it to Shilah Butler at Project Santa.
“We’ll make sure the kids get most, or all, of what they are asking for this Christmas.”
For more information, please call or text Shilah Butler at 907-259-7924 or email at shilahbutler@hotmail.com.
