'Operation Blue Santa' Delivers Smiles and More

EAST AUSTIN, TX -- Austin Police Department officers spread much-needed holiday cheer to young patients at Dell Children’s Medical Center on Christmas Eve, delivering gifts as part of their annual “Operation Blue Santa” initiative.

One of the recipients was especially surprised to get a visit from the elves in blue. At 18, he thought maybe only the younger patients in his hospital ward would be bestowed with a Christmas present.

The young man, Lorenzo Mantia, adopted a philosophical stance as he witnessed the smiles of his younger counterparts as they received their gifts.

“I’m older, and I thought they were going to skip my room,” he told a reporter for Fox 7 News. “Once you get older, you don’t get things that you want anymore because life goes on.”

Ah, but he hadn’t counted on the magic of Christmas, illustrated dramatically by officers’ enthusiasm in delivering gifts—including one saved just for him.

Lorenzo has been in the hospital for a week after his body started to reject a transplanted liver. He told Fox 7 staying at the hospital during Christmas was not the way he had envisioned spending the holidays.

“It is hard to be here because I’m missing being home with my family, with my mom celebrating Christmas with everybody.”

But for those precious moments, the young man was suffused with the Christmas spirit.
The joy is reciprocated in seeing the smiles on the children’s faces, Officer John Patrick Guardiola told the news station.

“If we could just bring a smile, just for a moment, that makes me feel good too,” Guardiola said. “We’re blessed, and I think we need to just appreciate that.”

Lorenzo had legitimate cause for worry. Operation Blue Santa is a non-profit, community-based organization that annually delivers wrapped Christmas gifts for children under 14—officially speaking, that is. Additionally, each patient’s family is served a full holiday meal with all the trimmings.

The effort started back in 1972 with 20 families benefiting from law enforcement’s largesse. This year’s version benefited more than 5,000 families.