Operation Blue Santa

This is a great place to gather friends and volunteer. Depending on what time you come, you can help wrap presents, group gifts by family, deliver, etc. A great way to get into the holiday spirit! I recommend bringing friends and getting dinner after– it goes fast!

On a whim, our family decided to sign up this year as delivery volunteers for Austin’s annual Operation Blue Santa (OBS), a holiday charity effort organized by the Austin Police Department. My company was doing it as a group and I figured it was a good way for us to do some community service together as a family, as anyone of any age can participate. Plus, we have a big cargo space in our hybrid family vehicle, we can haul a bunch of stuff — why not put it to good use to help someone? Another bonus, the gig only lasts until around lunch time, so there’d be plenty of hours left in the day to take care of other responsibilities.
Our call sheet for the Saturday-​before-​Christmas delivery morning asked us to show up at 7am to meet for breakfast with fellow employees and then get into the car line by 7:30am. I woke up, opened my eyes, and looked at my phone… 7:45am — oh crap!!! Guess we’re on the naughty list now. Well, we figured since the event went through noon (or whenever they run out of boxes to deliver), we’d throw on our festive hats and hurry down to South Austin to see if they still had anything for tardy people to do.
Even arriving at 8:30, there were still hundreds of cars in line around the block and plenty of boxes ready to go, so we didn’t miss a thing. It was fun just hanging out in the line, listening to holiday music selected by the 8 year old (Minecraft Christmas songs, anyone? Okay, how about Trans-​Siberian Orchestra?), and waving to all the happy fellow volunteers we saw. At different points along the line, various people directing the flow of traffic stopped us to chat and thank us for our service, handing out breakfast goodies & volunteer swag. Chief Acevedo even came out to shake hands with us and give the kids a badge sticker! There were lots of other smiling police officers, junior Explorer Program teens, & military members in uniform helping out, too. Another highlight was getting to take photos with Blue Santa and Mrs. Claus.
We learned that OBS delivers presents and food to about 3,900 families in the Austin city limits each year. The effort goes on all year long, with donations and toys collected year round, then presents being wrapped, sorted, and boxed at the main operations center off Ben White, east of IH35, just south of 71. There are many different kinds of volunteer activities involved, so check out the website if you’d like to see what might work for your schedule. To apply to receive Blue Santa boxes, check the website in October for that year’s eligibility and application information.
After about an hour in the car line (thank goodness for porta-​potties and hybrid engines!), it was finally our turn to load up. We were able to fit gift boxes & turkeys for 4 different families in our vehicle and we were off! The OBS planning for the delivery points was superb, as 3 of our families were within 5 blocks of each other, and the 4^th was just a couple miles away. Bonus, all were back up in North Austin, so when we were done, we were already close to home. We skipped the post-​event party, but if we’d gone back down south, we’d have had free BBQ, live music, and a big celebration with many of our city’s first responders.
This was a such an easy volunteer gig, and one that was a lot of fun for our whole family. We’ll definitely go again in 2015.