The Santa Foundation, Inc. Turns 30

Thirty years of giving.
This year, the Franklin-based Santa Foundation turns 30 years old. What began with Bob Sullivan and his wife hoping to give a good Christmas to two children 30 years ago has turned into a foundation that supports needy families in the region year round, not just during the holidays. Sullivan and his partner, Richard Timmons, along with a handful of volunteers (15 part-time), do their best to give hope to about 900 families a year. In total, they put in 2,500 hours of volunteer time a year, with Sullivan & Associates incurring all costs (about $12,000 a year), so that 100% of donations will benefit those who need it.
“I think the need grows every year,” says Sullivan, who says he doesn’t see things getting much better, after three decades. In particular, he says, “The homeless are a lost group. There are millions of homeless children living in the U.S. right now. No one talks about that. That’s a big problem, and there’s no shelter space anywhere.”
In 2015, the foundation distributed a total of over $50K to needy local families, with $9,450 toward rent/mortgage alone and another $9,720 in family support and $10,586 toward other family needs, which range from utility bills to packed school backpacks. In fact, in looking at the numbers for the past 30 years, Sullivan says he was surprised to find the Santa Foundation paid almost a half a million dollars ($487,774) in electric bills. In 30 years, the foundation supported 1,300 people with oil or rent, and it provided 482,427 gifts to 73,095 people in need during the holiday season. Last year alone, the Santa Foundation supported 861 families, including 5,683 individuals with 52,852 gifts estimated (at about $20 per gift) to total $1,057,704. And those families aren’t just Franklin families. Immediately local to Franklin, in which the Santa Foundation helps 161 families, the foundation supports:
• 71 families in Norfolk
• 69 families in Medway
• 51 families in Plainville
• 50 families in Bellingham
• 48 families in Milford
• 47 families in Blackstone
• 39 families in Wrentham
• 29 families in Millis
• 21 families in Attleboro, among others.
“People are under-employed more than they’re unemployed,” says Sullivan, who says the foundation helps lot of single mothers. He recalls seeing a local post office job opening with a salary of $32,000 a year. “If you’re a one-income family,” he says, “How can you live on that?
It’s scary when you think that people are one lost paycheck away from being on the street, and that happens a lot,” he says. “We’re the greatest country in the world. It doesn’t make sense we should have so many homeless people.”
Sullivan says he doesn’t buy putting any stigma on being poor “If they’re poor, they’re poor. Help them,” says the father and grandfather, who sees it as his God-given mission to help.
“The only thing I want from these people is – let us help them. If I help them and it gives the parents a little hope, it can change the outlook of the family.”
Sullivan says he wants struggling families to maintain their dignity.
“If they don’t have dignity, they have no confidence. If they don’t have confidence, they aren’t going to get a job,” he says. He remembers one abused woman who’d fled her husband and came to the Santa Foundation, ashamed to ask for help. “She was homeless … her head’s down, she’s embarrassed,” says Sullivan. The same woman came in two weeks later with a thank-you note, thrilled to have a job at McDonald’s. Later, she came back again, reporting on having a better job.
“Who can change the economic future of that family? The kids? No. The parents. Give the parents hope,” says Sullivan, who this month will take his foundation a step further and realize a dream he’s had for 20 years, that of opening a halfway house for a homeless family.
“It’s called Debbie’s’ Place, after my daughter, who died of cancer,” he says. “We’re working on finding a place, and we’ll move in one family and have an idea of what they need from being homeless to being self-sufficient a year later. We’ll monitor the family along the way, with goals for the month, and a year later, someone else will come in,” he says. Sullivan explains, “If I don’t do this, I’ll feel like I’m a failure. This is important to me, something I believe God tasked me with. Any of this stuff we do, it’s like our job. That’s all.”
Sullivan says the Santa Foundation’s volunteers don’t want accolades for what they’re doing, either. “The other day, I’m trying to impress on them how great they are, and they just kept working. They don’t care about that. You just do your job.”
Due to space limitations, the Santa Foundation cannot accept more volunteers, but Sullivan suggests that if local businesses or groups want to help, they might consider putting up an Angel Tree, which are decorated with tags that note Christmas wish list items for needy people. “We give them the tags, they put up the tree in the store, and we come and pick up the gifts. Individuals could sponsor a family,” he says. As of publication, Santa Foundation trees were located at Dean College, The Postal Center in Franklin and Millis, Twin Shears Salon, King Street Deli, British Beer Company, Norfolk Credit Union, Middlesex Bank, BJ’s, Thermo-Fischer Scientific, Team Fitness, Isabella’s in Millis, Dry Cleaning Pros., Franklin Health & Rehab, James Roadside Café and Whole Foods Market.
In fact, Sullivan says the foundation gets a good amount of support from local small businesses. “Our sponsors, in my book, are heroes. When you help someone you’re never going to meet, that’s amazing.”
There are fundraisers as well, such as an annual golf tournament and holiday calendar raffle. Some sponsors put together fundraisers, such as Norfolk Community League, which sponsors an annual Jingle Bell Run at the H. Olive Day School in Norfolk for the cause. This year’s run will take place on December 3rd, at 11:30 a.m. (Visit jinglebellrun5k.racewire.com to register.) What’s more, the British Beer Company in Franklin Village Plaza will host Breakfast with Santa, with all proceeds going to the Santa Foundation. Learn more about this event by visiting https://britishbeer.com/location/franklin/, emailing [email protected] or calling (508) 440-5190.
To find out more about how to help the Santa Foundation, visit www.thesantafoundationinc.org/ or http://www.facebook.com/SantaFoundation. You may also follow the Santa Foundation on Twitter @theSFinc.
Sullivan, who hopes his nine grandchildren, who are all involved in the foundation, will one day take it over, says his philosophy is that “Helping others is the rent we pay for living on this earth. I’m a big guy. I take a lot of space. I’ve got to pay a lot of rent. I believe we’re here to do this.”