‘KID SANTA’
Team of volunteers to expand toy-giving venture statewide
Kid Santa and his crew don’t circle the world like the original St. Nick, but expanding to all of Michigan this season has created a new challenge for the volunteers.
Kenneth Isaacson, 20, of Dearborn Heights, the original “Kid Santa,” has expanded his reach this year, bringing Christmas toys to children who would otherwise go without throughout the state, with the help of volunteers who are taking responsibility for different regions.
For instance, volunteers Chris and Carrie Feneis of Westphalia are taking charge of everything north of Alma, Isaacson said. They have raised $2,500 through three bowling fundraisers and organized others to help.
“There is so much support for it,” Isaacson said. “We have families in Rapid River, St. Ignace, Sault Saint Marie, Kincheloe and
Ishpeming. Then we have families in Grand Rapids, Zeeland, Holland, Muskegon, Comstock Park, Wyoming, Allendale, Kalamazoo, Wayland, Allegan, Mattawan, Marshall, Battle Creek, East Lansing, Saginaw, Mt. Pleasant, Clare and Farwell.”
Isaacson said they have been able to connect with people willing to volunteer to help families outside of metropolitan Detroit, especially in western Michigan.
Locally, they continue to help families in Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Garden City, Westland and other nearby cities like they have in the past.
“It’s going to be something different this year,” he said. “I didn’t know the U.P. is as wide east to west as the L.P. almost is north to south. I didn’t know there was that much travel time.”
He said he won’t go to every community himself, like in the past. Three
teams will meet at rendezvous points — in western Michigan, in the U.P., and in metropolitan Detroit — and then teams of volunteers will be responsible for getting gifts off the truck and into their personal vehicles, from which the teams will fan out to deliver to the recipient families.
Isaacson said he will be going across the central part of the lower peninsula, to Grand Rapids, then Lansing and finally to Dearborn Heights.
“The stuff we are processing will reach most corners of the state by Christmas morning,” he said. “It’s a challenge to do even the condensed route, and there are so many factors that we have to consider. It’s like a math problem when you only have half the equation to work with.”
Isaacson said he and the other volunteers are keeping a close eye on the weather forecasts.
He said last year, they focused on making sure no child was left without Christmas presents, since so many families were devastated economically last year by the pandemic. This year, he said they are focusing more on the quality of the gifts they are giving to the children on their list. So, they are serving fewer families, and they are helping over a much more extensive geographic area.
Isaacson said he has begun to realize that he needs a board to manage his charity like a nonprofit, and to manage it like a business, so they can raise enough money through donations and fundraisers to be able to provide Christmas presents to children in need.
He currently has a Gofundme page, Kid Santa 2021 by Kenneth Isaacson. He also is registered through the Amazon toy registry as Kid Santa 2021. Cherry Hill Presbyterian Church in Dearborn is receiving the toys purchased through the Amazon toy registry.
Isaacson said baby dolls, Legos and Barbies are on many children’s wish lists, but they need infant toys, as well.
In addition to helping low-income families, he said, they also are helping two families of fallen law enforcement officers this year, families of health care providers who died of COVID-19, and a family in Southgate who experienced a house fire this year.
Isaacson said they also provided early Christmas gifts in September to a little girl in Inkster dying of cancer who didn’t make it to December.
He said he hopes that his Kid Santa mission will soon become a nonprofit, with help from similarly minded volunteers like him.
Until then, he will keep being Kid Santa, working extra shifts to help fund it, and welcoming other likeminded volunteers into the Kid Santa fold.