Two Firefighters holding toy donations
Morro Bay Firefighters Holding Toy Donations

Operation Santa at The Department of Social Services was Incredibly Successful

Author: Social Services
Date: 1/17/2020 8:23:30 AM

Thanks to the generosity of our local community, the Department of Social Services has completed another successful Operation Santa gift distribution. Hundreds of needy local children received gifts of toys and clothes for the holiday.


Due to the overwhelming generosity of our community, the County of San Luis Obispo Department of Social Services received and distributed over 4000 gifts of toys, clothes and sundries, as well as over 500 gift cards for our annual Operation Santa.  Operation Santa provides gifts to needy children and their families throughout the county. 

Each holiday season, staff at DSS work with the families that we serve to create wish lists for children which are placed on Christmas trees at stores throughout the county.  Shoppers can select a tag, purchase the items on the list and give them to Social Services to pass on to the families. 

We also receive direct donations from individuals, businesses and organizations which we match to wish lists, routing the gifts to the families who have requested them.  Gifts that do not match a request go to ‘the North Pole,’ our centralized storage for gifts.  Workers who were unable to get wish lists for children or who now have children who were not affiliated with us at the time the lists were collected can come in and ‘shop’ for these kids.  Often, there are children who have only requested clothes for Christmas and while we strive to provide the clothes requested, often we give gift cards instead so the child can select the styles they like, adding some toys from this collection for them as well.

These donations allowed the department to provide Christmas presents to over 900 children.  The Department wishes to share our heartfelt thanks with all the organizations, individuals and businesses who gave this year and we look forward to an even more successful Operation Santa in 2020!