Since 1972, the Austin Police Department has spearheaded Operation Blue Santa, an effort that provides local families with a holiday meal and toys for each child in the family under the age of 14. When the project began, 20 local families were served, but last year, 5,000 families benefited from this outpouring of love and community support.
SuperShuttle and ExecuCar have teamed up with Operation Blue Santa for the third year to contribute to the effort and work toward the goal of collecting 20,000 toys. Our teams will also be helping to deliver the meals and toys on December 17th.
Kristi Carter, local owner of Austin SuperShuttle and ExecuCar and her husband Billy have been supporters of Operation Blue Santa for many years, and have gotten their daughters involved in the toy donation process. Kristi originally loved the fun connection between the name of the effort and the signature SuperShuttle blue vans, and how it just makes sense to have the SuperShuttle team helping out with Operation Blue Santa.
SuperShuttle and ExecuCar are donation sites, and anyone who is interested in helping can leave a new, unwrapped toy with their driver at pick-up. For those who are staying in town, toys can be donated at Austin fire stations, and the team will pick them up and shuttle them to the Blue Santa warehouse. Operation Blue Santa is requesting that donors keep in mind that toy weapons can not be accepted, and that smaller toys are preferred for ease of distribution. Those that are sized to fit into a paper grocery bag are perfect.
Want to help out but don’t know what toys to buy? Operation Blue Santa has a wish list with popular items, making it extremely easy to donate! Click here to check out the wish list.
For more information, visit www.bluesanta.org or watch us on Fox Good Day Austin on November 14th at 8:50 a.m. or KVUE on November 21st at 11:20 a.m.
