This Traveling Mailbox Will Send Your Letter Directly to Santa
A new initiative by Elevate Our Community aims to keep the magic of Christmas alive.
A good gym carries a sense of motivational energy, but what I spotted in the lobby of Best Fitness in Schenectady’s Crosstown Plaza Wednesday morning was far more festive. A few trainers in elf hats holding candy canes were gathered near the front desk, where a mailbox had materialized. I’m not talking about the kind that fills up with bills and junk flyers. I’m talking about a giant, red mailbox that only accepts letters destined for one place: the North Pole.
As the Best Fitness staff prepared a video for social media, Andy and Angela Mink looked on, laughing. They’re the couple behind Elevate Our Community, an organization that puts on events and plans initiatives to raise money for charities and provide youth scholarships.
“Elevate partners with a lot of local organizations that give back, Best Fitness being one of them,” says Andy. “We also work with The Broken Inn in Niskayuna as well as Frog Alley Brewing in Schenectady.”
Beginning Tuesday, that quartet—Elevate, Best Fitness, The Broken Inn, and Frog Alley—will team up on a feel-good initiative that runs through December 16. The idea, Angela says, originated at home.
“We had an idea a couple of years ago about having a mailbox in our front yard where kids could put their letters to Santa,” she says. “And what if we wrote back to them?”
That “what if” didn’t stay theoretical for long. Andy, a technology teacher at Shenendehowa’s Gowana Middle School, put students in the tech club he runs to work building the mailbox, and started talking about it with Eric Taylor from Best Fitness.
“Eric actually came up with the idea of bringing the mailbox to the businesses we partner with to generate the magic of Christmas in their facilities,” Andy says.
So how does it work? “Letters to Santa” invites local children to pen letters to Mr. Claus himself (with a return address) and drop them in the big red mailbox, which will be at Best Fitness from November 25–December 1, Frog Alley from December 3–9, and The Broken Inn from December 10–16. The best part? Every letter will be answered.
For the Minks, the “why” behind this work goes back to their own childhood memories of the holiday season. “We come from families that always made holidays very magical for us, and we love it,” Angela says. “So we just want to give a little bit back to our community.”
—Michael