SANTA'S AID COMES BY POST OFFICE.

Byline: Stacy Brown Daily News Staff Writer

Stacia Crane and Jody Martin, postal workers and part-time elves, sifted Thursday through yet another pile of ``Dear Santas'' when welcome news arrived.

Co-worker Judy Davis, so touched by the prose of one grown woman's letter to Santa Claus, decided to ``adopt'' her family and make her Christmas wishes come true.

``My daughter hasn't had much of a Christmas for a few years now,'' reads the letter from the June Lake area. ``I am not financially able to do much as I am on disability. My daughter is 13 and we live alone. For years we haven't had a tree. . . .''

Davis made immediate plans, as hundreds of other volunteers have done when they've read the thousands of letters addressed to the North Pole that land each year at the U.S. Postal Service's central distribution center in Castaic.

``I will contact the postmaster out there, and I will buy them food and some things for the child. I just want them to have a Christmas,'' Davis said.

For the past several years, Crane and company anonymously have answered letters to Santa that come in by the bag load.

``The letters come in bundles at a time, all addressed to Santa at the North Pole,'' Crane said. ``And it's not just kids, it's teen-agers and adults too. You never know what you're going to see.''

Crane and her co-workers in the Consumer Affairs Division use their own time to respond to these letters. They solicit their fellow employees, friends and the community to volunteer their time to answer the letters, fulfilling requests for gifts and even adopting a child or family for the holidays.

``We go out there and try to grant wishes,'' she said.

But as Crane and her newly hired assistant Jody Martin will attest, not all of the wishes are easy to grant.

``People write in saying their mom lost her job, their dad is in jail, the family needs shoes. It's amazing how many needy people are out there,'' Martin said.

``I warned Jody about the hazards of this when she came aboard,'' Crane said. ``You get attached, it gets very emotional here, and for the most part the parents of a lot of these kids don't know they've written to Santa.''

One letter starts sweetly enough: ``Santa, please bring me some dresses and a Barbie. . . .'' But what brings Stacia Crane to tears as she scans yet another gut-wrenching letter to Santa Claus, is the child's biggest wish:

Please get her daddy out of jail, because he didn't really kill the man who raped a member of her family.

Of the more than 10,000 letters which pour in each year, there can also be found a little laughter amid all the tears. Eight-year-old Ellen writes from the San Fernando Valley, ``Dear Santa, I sort of not believe in you. I sent you a letter last year and told you what I wanted.

``Ditto! I did not get what I wanted. Every Christmas I cried, I always wished on the first star. . . . I ask for no toys, I have no time for toys. All I really want is this . . . I must have proof that you are real.''

On Christmas Eve, Crane, Davis and other dedicated volunteers will make Santa real to a lot of those who write.

``By then, we would have done all of our verifications, and with whatever donations we get, we will buy that little girl whose father is in jail a Barbie doll, some dresses and give her and many others a Christmas.

``It is unfortunate we won't be able to get that little girl's dad out of jail,'' Crane said. Last year, the postal workers and their volunteers worked past midnight delivering gifts to the underprivileged who still hold out hope that a Santa does really exist.

``The looks on their faces when we come to their door is incredible. It is priceless. They write and don't expect these letters to be answered, not to mention getting a gift from a total stranger,'' Crane said.

Some of the letters are requests for food and money for transportation to get to school and work. Martin said the saddest letters come from kids who put their parents' and siblings' needs and wants ahead of their own.

``We have kids asking for shoes, when you think they'd be asking for toys. One kid said his brother, sister and his mother did not have shoes to wear,'' Martin said.

`` `My mom needs a jacket and shoes,' read one letter, so how could you not do anything about it?'' Crane said, tears welling again in her eyes. ``Many years ago we'd just send them a letter back, but now I feel we must deliver presents to them. We must.''

Crane said volunteers can help by calling the Consumer Affairs Office at [phone] or [phone]. There are two ways to help. Volunteers can write letters back to the children or, in some cases, adopt one of the families of a letter writer.

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Photo

PHOTO (color) Postal workers in Santa Clarita read Santa's mail to see if they can offer some holiday help.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News