Santa Brings Joy To Sickle-Cell Families: Photos Of Week

OAKLAND, CA – Despite his North Pole duties, Santa Claus made time last week to attend a holiday party at the West Oakland Youth Center in Oakland with families battling sickle-cell disease.

The Community Advisory Council of Northern California, in conjunction with UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, hosted the annual holiday party for families in the San Francisco and Sacramento areas -- an event started in the 1970s by Dr. William Roth, a sickle-cell researcher and physician at Children’s Hospital Oakland.

Peter Roth, son of event founder William Roth, played Santa this year, handing out gifts to children in attendance, according to organizers. Additional gifts will be distributed to children being treated at the hospital's Comprehensive Center for Sickle Cell Disease, the largest and most comprehensive sickle cell program in the western United States.

Chairperson of the council and event, Wanda Williams, was diagnosed with sickle-cell disease at 19, one of the first adult patients treated at the Comprehensive Center for Sickle Cell Disease. Now in her late 60s, Williams is among the longest living people with sickle cell disease.

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FOR PATCH PHOTOS OF WEEK:

If you have an awesome photo from the community, of nature, breathtaking scenery, kids caught being kids or a pet doing something funny or something unusual, we'd love to feature it on Patch.

Send your photos to autumn.johnson@patch.com, and we'll post the feature on an occasional basis. Please include when and where the shot was taken and any other details about what was happening.

• ALSO SEE: Santa, Baby! Jolly One Leaves North Pole, Visits With Little Ones

--Images courtesy of Sickle Cell Community Advisory Council of Northern California