Starting in December of 1998 our Santa Visit Program visited over 300 Special Children in hospitals with additional private visits to children with life threatening illnesses and children in crisis. Since then, Santa and his Elves have touched the hearts of children and their families, friends, child life specialists, caregivers, firemen and others. For example, this past summer, we visited over 200 children and caregivers at Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) summer camps in Iowa and Nebraska.

Santa's Children does not wish to compete with or duplicate the services of any child-serving organizations in Iowa and Nebraska. Rather, we want to be a partner with all child-serving organizations to enhance the way they deliver their services to individuals in need. During the 2005 Christmas season, Open Door Mission families visited Santa's Village for a meal, entertainment, and Christmas gifts. Santa also visited children in Santa's Village from Children's Hospital, University of Nebraska Medical Center, and are planning for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) of Iowa and Nebraska to bring several busloads of children to Santa's Village for a late Christmas party. We will continue to make private visits to terminally and seriously ill children and children in crisis. During these visits we provided hundreds of toys and gifts to the various organizations and individuals.

Santa's Children will work with organizations such as Open Door Mission, Salvation Army, and Toys for Tots to help provide clothing, toys, shoes, and other juvenile products to children in need. As Fire Departments become our partners in the K.I.D.S. program, they will help in the identification and distribution process within their communities to provide help to those in need.

Santa's Children Christmas Village has three current objectives.

• The first is our Santa Visit Program, which is being expanded at the new Santa Village Headquarters in Macedonia, IA where we are stocking toys for immediately available gifts to children.
  
  
• The second is to help fund Santa visits, gifts, and activities for other nonprofit children's organizations and to support Fire Departments in Iowa and Nebraska as they work with distressed children. We provide Santa visits, clothing and toys to the children they are working with. We raise funds for these activities through our web site at www.santaschildren.org and through sales at our retail location in Macedonia.
  
  
• The third objective is serving as a recipient agency with Kids In Distressed Situations (K.I.D.S.).

The mission statement of Santa's Children Christmas Village emphasizes our dedication to supporting children in crisis. Our programs are designed to support families, with special attention to children with serious and terminal illnesses. Santa's Children Christmas Village will accomplish this with a Santa visitation program providing a magical day for the children, their families and caregivers.

Kids In Distressed Situations (K.I.D.S.) is a national organization that works with retailers to help children in crisis by providing them with new clothing, toys, shoes, glasses, books, etc. all free of charge. Since 1985, K.I.D.S. has distributed $500 million of donated new products to over 50 million needy children. We are a distribution partner with K.I.D.S because of our unique approach in working with Fire Departments to identify and help children in crisis. An integral part of our association with K.I.D.S is that for every $1 we send them, they provide us with $10 of clothing and toys for distribution to children in Iowa and Nebraska.

We feel confident that our partnership with K.I.D.S. is the best way to facilitate large donations of children's items throughout Iowa and Nebraska. K.I.D.S. was founded in 1985 by several leaders in the childrens-wear industry in response to child victims of several African crises and has since spread its work throughout the United States and around the world. To date, nearly $500 million of donated products have been given to children in crises. By working with K.I.D.S., we can efficiently provide a variety of products. Rather than contacting manufacturers and retailers locally and nationally soliciting donations, our volunteers can spend 100% of their time working with children in need and the organizations who serve them.

The following is a listing of the members of Santa's Children Christmas Village management team.  A link is provided for a brief description of each member's background.

Santa's Children Christmas Village has been approved by the Internal Revenue Services as of May 11, 2000 to be exempt from federal income tax under the 501(c)(3) ruling of the Internal Revenue Code.

A copy of the determination letter is available upon request to: