Summit’s Santa Claus Shop Delivers Holiday Joy for 60th Year

Community Has Come Together to Provide for Locals Since
Santa Claus Shop’s Inception in 1966

For the 60th consecutive year, the Santa Claus Shop will open its doors this December to low-income area families to provide complimentary holiday shopping. The milestone year is a time to reflect on the power of community, collective impact, and gratitude for the volunteers and donors who have made the shop possible year after year.

A simple request to the Summit Junior League in 1966 to help local families in need during the holidays turned into a lasting endeavor that has grown to help thousands of low-income families and seniors in and around Summit. After five years under the Junior League’s purview, the Santa Claus Shop became its own self-sustaining community organization and took on a new special life of its own. Today, the group has one chair and one co-chair from each of Summit’s five public elementary schools who serve two-year terms.

The Santa Claus Shop is a true collaborative effort with the whole community. The chairs work with the schools to identify families who are in need and then, with support from residents and local businesses, they raise over $40,000 a year to bring holiday magic to those who need it. Shoppers receive a new gift, book, and set of gloves and a hat for every child under 18, a new houseware item and toiletries for the family, and gift cards for groceries. The Santa Shop chairs also host an annual holiday breakfast for low-income seniors living at the Vita A. Gallo Senior Housing building.

This year, the Santa Claus Shop is chaired by Summit residents Jacquelyn Ford, Whitney Goldberg, Jennifer Jones, Tara Marshall, and Mollie Siebert and co-chaired by Allie Brush, Leslie Flax, Emily Martin, Joyce Sheridan, and Margo Strauss. The Santa Claus Shop exists solely on donations and volunteers, including two very special sisters, Monica and Karina Maroto, who have taken off work to help all day at the shop for more than 15 years.

To keep the holiday spirit alive for residents in need, the Santa Claus Shop chairs ask for members of the community to consider giving. Checks can be made payable to SHIP, with Santa Claus Shop noted on the check’s memo line, and mailed to the Santa Claus Shop, P.O. Box 119, Summit, NJ 07902. The ability to make an online donation is also available at www.summitsantaclausshop.com.
This Santa Claus Shop will be held at St. John’s Lutheran Church, 587 Springfield Avenue in Summit. Families will be offered shopping hours by invitation only during the first week of December. If you would like to find out more information or get involved, please visit our website or follow us on Facebook at Santa Claus Shop – Summit, NJ and Instagram –
@santa_claus_shop_summit.

To donate, please visit https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/santaclausdonations

About The Santa Claus Shop

The Santa Claus Shop, strictly a volunteer organization, is affiliated with SHIP (Summit Helping Its People). The Santa Claus Shop hosts a shopping event in early December for families in need and senior citizens of Summit, New Providence, and Berkeley Heights. These individuals, who are referred to us by social service agencies, are invited to pick out holiday gifts for their immediate family members.