Who would have ever imagined that a Santa suit and a bag of candy canes could turn into a 501(c)3 non-profit foundation with no paid employees that has granted over $1M in scholarships to deserving students who wanted to continue their education through college and/or a trade school?

In 1983, after a devastating flood in the small community of Alviso, California, my husband Joe and I, with our Santa suit and a bag of candy canes, visited their small library and brought some much-needed joy and happiness to the families in that small, low-income community. Growing up my sister and I were truly blessed to have two loving parents that taught us the value of being kind and helping others in need so my husband and I started thinking about how we could do more for that community going forward. We returned the next Christmas and Richard Santos, a firefighter and a member of the community, plus his friend Ted Lopez, also a firefighter, joined us as we started working on expanding our plans to do more. As the years passed more people started donating money so we were able to start purchasing toys for all the children. Then in 2006 as the donations started to multiply we were finally able to start our scholarship program which we plan to
continue on each year going forward.