Texas Shelter Shares Boy's Heart-Tugging Letter To Santa

TARRANT COUNTY, TX — We often read of shelters as places where people in distress find safe haven — however temporary — in helping them get back on their feet. Yet the reality of life in such interim housing is often viewed only in the abstract as the more-fortunate among us go about our lives in the safe environs of home.

SafeHaven of Tarrant County shared a letter to Santa typical of the type of holiday correspondence its young residents pen to express their wishes. A letter from a 7-year-old boy whose mother escaped domestic violence in finding refuge at SafeHaven yields a heartbreaking yet somehow uplifting study into the strength and resilience of the human spirit.

Hope springs eternal — even amid the uncertainty and strife that life sometimes unpredictably brings — as the boy's missive illustrates.

"Dear Santa," the letter from the boy named Blake begins. "We all had to leave our house. Dad was mad. Mom said it was time to leave and she would take us to a safer place where we don't have to be scared."

The boy describes personal anxiety no child should ever have to experience: "I'm still nervous. I don't want to talk to the other kids. We don't have any of our stuff here," he explains.

But even wracked with such fear, the little boy is suffused with the Christmas spirit: "Are you going to come this Christmas?" he asks with palpable trepidation. If so, he added, he's got a wish list — a heartbreaking compilation: "Can you bring some chapter books, a dictionary, and a compass and watch?

"I also want a very very very good dad. Can you do that too?"

SafeHaven shared the boy's letter on Facebook, along with similar correspondence from the shelter's tiny residents. Thanks to donations through Santa's Sack from generous supporters, Blake got everything on his wish list, officials noted (save, presumably, a more suitable father).

And yet, officials noted, more help is needed to help ensure a happier holiday season for the 117 women and children currently housed at the shelter

SafeHaven's tagline, "Freedom from domestic violence," succinctly encapsulates its mission to end the scourge through "safety, support, prevention and social change," as officials describe on their website. It's the largest and most comprehensive agency in Tarrant County, where Fort Worth, Texas, is the county seat, offering 24-hour care at a pair of shelters at no cost to domestic violence victims.

For more information about SafeHaven, click here. To donate a gift to a child like Blake, click here.