In a bright, red room with a moose-shaped clock, Jaci Williams, treasurer of the Citizen’s Advisory Board, sits working at her desk. Once a year, the advisory board’s Secret Santa program, which Williams started over 25 years ago, fulfills foster kids' wants rather than their needs.
The CAB is an organization committed to filling in the gaps in the state system by providing “immediate resources for children in foster care systems in Cleveland County,” Williams said.
Williams has lived in Norman since 1946 and holds degrees in early childhood education, interior design and accounting, she said. She has been president of Friends of the Norman Library and is currently co-chair of Rotary Youth Exchange. In the midst of all these things, her real passion is helping children, she said.
While volunteering for Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children in the 1980s, Williams met child welfare worker Sue Durrett. Through Durrett, Williams learned about the need for the Secret Santa program, she said.
“At that time, the bank in Moore that had been doing a Secret Santa program had quit, and basically I whined to her about our kids, and she started it,” Durrett said.
Durrett's whining paid off. CAB’s Secret Santa program began in 1989 with a single mission: “fulfill the Christmas wish lists of children in out-of-home care in Cleveland County,” according to a CAB pamphlet.
Secret Santa acts “upon the theory that these are kids, that their life is totally out of their control, and just once they should be able to say, ‘I want,’ and they should get,” Williams said. “It does something that says you’re important enough that you get what you want. So whether it’s 14 Barbie dolls, because all their friends have 14 Barbie dolls, or a pair of Nike shoes that’s $125, they can ask for that, and we will do our best to provide it,” Williams said.
The process behind getting the Secret Santa presents to the foster children involves the Norman community, Williams said.
Secret Santa gets part of its funding through the yearly OU Coaches Luncheon and through solicitation letters that are sent out Nov. 1 of each year, Williams said.
Sue Durrett acts as “chief elf" and works with the Department of Human Services to connect children to shoppers, she said. “My job is to get all the names of the children from DHS workers that they want to put on the Secret Santa program,” Durrett said. “And then I send out letters to the foster parents with wish lists for them to fill out on the kids. So then when I get the wish lists back, I put them into the database so that they’ll be ready for the shoppers when they call wanting to shop for kids,” she said.
Members of the Norman community can volunteer to be “elves” and choose which child’s wish list they want to shop for.
“If you are a grandmother, and you have a 7-year-old grandson, and you want to take that grandson shopping with you to shop for a 7-year-old boy, we’ll give you a 7-year-old boy,” Williams said.
Local businesses and churches shop for children as well, Williams said.
“We have people that have parties, and they have everybody bring money and go out and shop for the kids,” Williams said.
Once all the gifts are purchased, CAB volunteers keep track of inventory and store them.
“On Dec. 13 we haul (the gifts) all over to the fairgrounds. We open every sack, reinventory it, and have it available for the foster families to pick up the gifts and take them home to put under the tree,” Williams said.
Heather Huey, a former foster youth who now works as a case aide for DHS, received gifts through the Secret Santa program for two years, she said.
“Secret Santa had a huge impact, not only on me, but also on my siblings, because the main goal that Secret Santa is for these kids is normalcy and trying to make their lives as normal as possible,” Huey said. “It’s a way to take stress off of, not only the foster parents, but also the biological parents that can’t always buy the presents for their kids either. So it’s just all-inclusive."
The goal of the program is bigger than just providing children with gifts, Durrett said.
“Knowing that on Christmas morning these kids will get at least one wish that they asked for, just one wish, it’s so important to them,” Durrett said. “Number one, they know that someone has heard. Number two, they know that someone loves them, and number three, it gives them hope and gives them the ability to continue to believe."
