We would like to take a moment to, once again, thank the By-Town Heritage Club for its outstanding support of last year’s Santa Letter-writing Program. Please extend our sincere gratitude to all your members who helped with this year’s program. Their dedication to keeping the magic of Santa alive is our very own holiday miracle!
This was one of the most difficult years for the Santa Letter-writing Program—de-twinning, increased volumes, printing issues, difficulty in recruiting volunteers, etc.—and we simply would never have made it through the last few months without the Heritage Club’s support. Particularly in Ottawa , we are blessed to have your members who are so clearly committed to the program. This year, we had to call upon you, several times, over and above your ‘regularly-scheduled’ commitment to help us cope with some of the challenges we faced. And your members responded in their usual, “of course” fashion.
We are particularly thankful for the support shown by Claude Bruneau and Lise Jette. Not only do they organize all the Heritage Club effort (and willingly be the bearer of the “they need us again” message) but they are both volunteers extraordinaire, responding to hundreds of letters each.
Though it was a difficult year, it can be labelled nothing short of a grand success – nationally, we replied to 1.48 million letters, a 9.63% increase from 2013. We NEVER could have accomplished this without the Heritage Club. In Ottawa , we saw our volumes increase by almost 50% and, again, we would never have been able to have our own version of a clean floor without your support.
We are thankful to have the By-Town Heritage Club play such an important role in this wonderful holiday tradition. And we are very proud that, as Canada’s postal service evolves to meet the changing demands of its customers and the realities of so many new communication tools; the tradition of a child putting pen to paper to share their wishes, hopes and dreams for the holiday season (and the whole year) with their most trusted confidant – that letter to Santa – remains a strong as ever.
We hope the New Year will bring happiness and continued success to all your members, and that when the Fall comes around they will be back to help Santa with his mail. Thank you again!
Regards,
Cindy, Christiane and Liz
(Cindy Daoust is Canada Post’s Manager of Community Investment)
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Here are the 2013 results, according to Fred Danells, Heritage Club Santa Letter-writing co-ordinator. Overall, some 16 of 25 chapters reported participation in the Santa letter writing program. By-Town Chapter members can be proud of their contribution!
Chapter Volunteers Hours Replies
Terra Nova 46 120 5,800
Bluenose 12 120 6,000
Ville-Marie 23 299 6,759
Laurentides 18 100 3,313
Richelieu 26 346 7,285
Simcoe 9 24 1,170
Humber 39 128 6,238
Thames 15 100 5,050
Grand Saugeen 15 50 2,000
By-Town 34 700 10,000
Golden Sheaf 8 100 4,963
Chinook 70 260 12,690
Parkland 24 270 13,500
Central Yukootok 11 34 1,671
Van Fraser 96 13,240 60,472
Van isle 1 10 437
Total 447 15,901 147,348