What is Operation Santa?
Operation Santa is an annual relief program in San Diego initiated by the community service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega at UCSD (Rho Pi Chapter) to provide a Christmas to families in San Diego that cannot afford gifts for their children. Our goal is to make sure as many of these kids as possible can actually experience a true Christmas by bringing gifts, clothes and food!
The Beginning
Operation Santa was started in 2007 by a former Rho Pi active,
Namquyen Nguyen, who had done a similar project with her high school (Center High School). With the aftermath of the San Diego Fires and the beginning of the downward spiral of the recession, Nam really thought APO could do more with helping out its community. With 200+ members, Nam knew we had the capacity to really make a difference or impact, we just needed to find the right project. Operation Santa seemed like the perfect project to not only get APO’s name out there and let others know we are serious about what we believe in, but also an opportunity for the brotherhood to really work together as a team and for our members to get really passionate again about what we do (morale booster/help with retention). That was her hopes for the project.
Her experiences at Center High School with the project: “It was our yearly Leadership project. With a group ranging from freshmen to seniors, the project really gave us an opportunity to show our leadership skills, and help us form better relationships with one another, which later would tremendously help us with making better decisions for the school and working better as a team in general. The project was already established at my school, so we had a lot of support already from the community. But it was a huge success every year with support from the media, local groceries, and a large amount of nominations from the community each year. It was one of few moments that I really remembered in high school and wanted to share how I felt with my brothers.”
Year 1
Ruth Hsiao was the first Operation Santa chair and contacted various federations and organizations in the San Diego area including the Chicano Federation and the MAAC Project, both with the mission to promote self-sufficiency for low income families. 2 families were helped that year
Fundraising that year included: CPK restaurant fundraiser, AS funding, donations from the general body and family members
Year 2
(flyer designed by Kimberly Hunter)
Eunice Yu was the second chair of Operation Santa. She went through SAY San Diego (a local nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the positive development of young people, their families and communities in San Diego County) to find 4 needy families. Fundraising was done through Rubios (on campus), Souplantation, gift wrapping at Barnes and Noble and selling domokun dolls at Summit (now known as “Pines”). In addition, she chose to do small side projects such as fleece tie pillow making workshops and the Domokun making workshops. These side projects were seen as ways to contribute to the community because the products were donated to local charities such as the Salvation Army.
In parallel, Miller Huang attempted to make the project more public by posting a flyer at a local Henry’s supermarket (most places rejected the idea of posting a flyer at their establishment) and promoted an e-mail address (operationsanta08@gmail.com) on a local radio morning show (Mikey Show on Rock 105.3FM). From the brief plug on the radio, one listener e-mailed in and asked for and received help. This included a mattress donation from Sleep Train for her sick child.
Special thanks to Eunice’s committee of: Briana Ly, Jeannie Ong, Eric Ting, Olivia Truong, Elliot Hung, Miller Huang, Diana Wu, along with the service officers: Mallory Wang and Tiffany Luong
Audio
120508 Operation Santa 2008 on Mikey Show Rock 105.3FM
Operation santa 2008 nomination letter
Year 3
(flyer designed by Jamie Yan)
Ruth Hsiao and Miller Huang co-chaired Operation Santa with a new approach this year: instead of selecting families from local non-profit agencies, let the San Diego community nominate a family. This would accomplish a couple things:
1. Sometimes the families that need the most help are ones that had something JUST happen to them that year (got laid off, lost a loved one, had a family member go through a serious medical illness, evicted from their home) and the only ones who would know they need help are their close friends and family. Or some families may not qualify for government assistance, which may make them worse off than those who are receiving government help. While non-profit groups may be helping some families, these other families may not be getting any help.
2. By bringing more public awareness to Operation Santa, it will legitimize the cause and will increase our chances of obtaining donations from outside sources. More donations mean we can help more families. More awareness also means we can receive more nominations to help more families.
We publicized our e-mail address (operationsanta09@gmail.com) by posting flyers at various establishments (non-corporations, more mom & pop stores) in different cities (e.g. La Mesa, Lakeside, El Cajon, National City, Chula Vista, Spring Valley, Lemon Grove), going on 2 radio morning shows (Mikey Show on Rock 105.3FM, AJ in the morning on Star 94.1FM) as well as NBC 7/39′s local morning show. We also got some plugs from Fritz Coleman (NBC’s weatherman) in the afternoon segments and from Channel 10 (ABC) news. Overall, we received 37 family nominations and attended to 30 of them. 5 of these families were given to each of the APO families to provide on their own.
Fundraising this year included CPK fundraiser, coin wars at GBM, domokun dolls, and donations from alumni/actives/pledges. Hall of Famer Cindy Tung got her elementary school kids to start a toy drive specifically for this project!
Special thanks to our committee of: Angela Lee, Briana Ly, Colette Lui, Danna Lee, Diana Li, Diane Chu, Jenny Lee, Kristen Ballungay, Michelle Chiang, Michelle Lin, Pamela Tisuthiwongse, Sandy Chung, Tiffany Tsiou, Vanessa Tse
Audio
110509 Operation Santa 2009 on Mikey Show (Rock 105.3FM)
111209 Operation Santa 2009 on AJ in the morning (Star 94.1FM)
121609 Operation Santa 2009 Mikey Show follow up
121809 Operation Santa 2009 AJ in the morning follow up
Video
112009 Operation Santa 2009 on NBC
Year 4
(flyer designed by Michael Liu)
Michelle Lin, Angela Lee and Tiffany Tsiou headed Operation Santa for the 4th year. They received similar publicity support from NBC 7/39, Fritz Coleman (NBC afternoon weatherman), The Show (Rock 105.3FM), and AJ in the morning (Star 94.1FM). In addition, they made an appearance on Channel 6 (CW) morning news and got an afternoon plug on Star 94.1FM from Delana Bennett (member of the “AJ in the morning” show). The additional publicity brought in over 75 nominations! To accommodate the growing demand for help, we collaborated with other UCSD campus organizations to adopt families themselves. We got help from Pre-Medical Association of Students for Service (PASS), Alpha Kappa Psi, Women and Children Care Initiative (WCCI), Health and Medical Professions Preparation Program (HMP3), American Medical Student Association (AMSA), and ERC Resident Advisors. Also, listeners of AJ in the morning called in to offer donations and one listener got her workplace (Cobham Sensor Systems) to start their own toy drive to support this cause. Lastly, members of “AJ in the morning” show actually adopted a family themselves and talked about it on the air! 55 families were selected for help and we additionally gave the extra donations to 2 more families for a total of 57!
After informing our Chancellor and faculty advisor, Ryan Crawford, of our progress, they referred our story to a writer from “This Week @ UCSD”, Ioana Patringenaru, which lead to a story being published and a press release being sent out by UCSD. The press release caught the attention of other online blogs including “La Jolla Patch”, “La Jolla Light”, “San Diego Entertainer”, and “Sign on San Diego.” These stories helped us get more donations from the public.
Audio
102810 Operation Santa 2010 on The Show (Rock 105.3FM)
110410 Operation Santa 2010 AJ in the morning (Star 94.1FM)
110410 Operation Santa 2010 Delana afternoons (Star 94.1FM)
121310 AJ in the morning reads the story of their adopted family (Star 94.1FM)
121410 Operation Santa 2010 AJ in the morning followup (Star 94.1FM)
121510 AJ follows up on their Operation Santa delivery (Star 94.1FM)
Video
110110 Operation Santa 2010 on NBC
110410 Operation Santa 2010 NBC afternoon
110510 Operation Santa 2010 CW
121510 Operation Santa 2010 CW update
Articles
