Backing Up Santa at the Post Office

By JACKIE FITZPATRICK

Dear Santa Claus, I'm almost 10 years old. I have two brothers. I am very good with my Mom. I help her and take care of my baby brother. Santa, I know you are just like God. I know you could do miracles. I've been very, very good. And all I want for Christmas is happiness and to be with my family. Santa, I want you to make the best Christmas for my Mom. She needs it because she is the best Mom in the whole world. My Mom is very sad and if she is sad, I can't be happy. She takes care of me, my brother and my baby brother and her mentally retarded brother. She is the only thing we have. I don't know where my father is. He left us. My Mom has to take care of us by herself. So please Santa, make my wish come true. Make my Mommy happy for Christmas.

The letters are simply addressed ''Santa Claus, North Pole,'' handwritten in pencil or pen. Inside the envelope are their wishes, grand and small. One child asks Santa for an Easy Bake oven, another for a bike, but many of the children whose letters pour into the Bridgeport Post Office ask for other things: health for a father who is dying, warm blankets for little brothers and sisters, a coat, a Christmas tree.

The letters are answered. They get responses because of the generosity of postal workers and of other volunteers in the Bridgeport area and because of the concerns of two postal employees in particular: Doug Carey and Nancy Hernandez.

Mr. Carey, the director of customer relations for the Bridgeport Post Office, has been a postal employee in Bridgeport for 23 years, as a clerk and later in management. Over the years, he watched as letters to Santa piled up, then were thrown out.

So one day, 13 years ago, he opened one of the letters, and another and another. What he read astounded him.

''As a child, I'd ask Santa for a G. I. Joe or a color TV or something, and most of these kids weren't asking for gifts for themselves at all; they wanted a lost family member back. And many children just asked Santa for food. It was very touching, and I thought these letters had to be answered.''

Mr. Carey asked other postal workers for their help; clerks and carriers alike immediately embraced the idea, taking home letters to answer in the midst of their busiest time of the year.

That first year, with the help of the Big Brother/Big Sister organization, the postal workers answered 80 letters, giving each of those children a gift. The second year, Mr. Carey received help from the city's welfare department, whose employees helped them screen letters, trying to determine if a child who wrote in had brothers and sisters, so they would also receive gifts. Over the years the program has grown so that last year more than 300 letters were answered and gifts provided to more than 500 children, according to Ms. Hernandez, a postal clerk who has taken the baton from Mr. Carey and now administers the program.

Letters start arriving by the pileful in late November and early December. The postal workers open and sort them. The neediest are answered first. Letters are also placed in a box, so that people dropping off Christmas cards or other mail can pick up one or two. Usually they return with a wrapped present; sometimes they open thin envelopes of worn dollar bills and contribute a few to the children.

''We know where the very needy neighborhoods are,'' Ms. Hernandez said. ''Most of the letters are very genuine. Every now and then we get beat and someone scams us but that's bound to happen.''

As Christmas draws near, Ms. Hernandez urges people to take letters home and answer them, encourages local companies to take a bunch. ''There are always letters that go unanswered and that breaks my heart,'' she said. Mary Ann Harp, a postal clerk, said the entire post office gets swept up into the program. ''It's so nice to be able to help a child,'' she said. ''That's what this holiday is supposed to be about.''

When Ms. Hernandez comes across a particularly moving letter, she visits the home. ''Sometimes I get to a home and I can't believe what I see,'' she said. ''Last year, one little boy wrote to Santa, saying that all he wanted were blankets for his family. I got to his apartment and there were five kids there and the family literally had nothing. They had just moved to Bridgeport and all they had was the kitchen sink, two sheets on the floor to sleep on, no food, nothing.''

Ms. Hernandez talked to postal employees and others, and by Christmas the children had blankets and coats, a toy each and a kitchen full of food.

By late December, she and the other postal workers are weary indeed. ''Every year I say, 'I'm not going to take this on this year,' and then I think, how can't I?'' she said.

As Mr. Carey explains it, the project is made possible by the belief of Bridgeport postal administrators, particularly Postmaster Michael Boccio, that they are part of the community.

''Many of our employees are single parents themselves; they're working to keep their own families going,'' Mr. Carey said. ''This time of year they're already putting in 12-hour days and then they're out their buying gifts for a total stranger. It gives you a warm feeling to be around here at Christmas time.''

Mr. Carey said they continue to see a growing need not only in Bridgeport but also in Stratford, Shelton, Trumbull and Monroe. ''Supposedly the economy is better,'' he said, ''but all of the towns we serve have some needy families.''

When a child receives a package, a little yellow notice is sent to the home, asking the child to go to the main Post Office to pick it up. Tucked in the corner of the notice, the return address reads ''Santa, North Pole.''

Many businesses in the area take dozens of letters and answer them. Ms. Hernandez said the staff of one Bridgeport law firm regularly answers more than 50 letters.

Jeff Vogt and Mitch Wein of the Westport-based advertising firm Vogt/Wein answered 50 letters last year and plan to do more this season. ''Mitch had been helping with the Bridgeport program, taking his own children out shopping to get some gifts for children in need,'' Mr. Vogt said. Then they decided to expand their efforts and work as a company, piling shopping carts full of Barbies and Power Rangers, but mostly clothes because that is what is needed.

''Instead of giving our clients a nice bottle of champagne, we buy a gift for a child in their honor and we give them a small token and the copy of the letter we answered in their name,'' Mr. Vogt said. ''Our clients have been very moved by the letters, as we are, and everybody benefits.''

Last year, Vogt/Wein answered the letter of a little boy who wanted a Christmas tree. When he was at the store buying an artificial tree and lights, employees at the store noticed he was reading a letter. The store wound up donating a whole cartful of decorations and tree trimmings. ''It's catching,'' Mr. Vogt said.

The letters pour in.

Dear Santa, I am writing to tell you that my mother is in jail. We are staying with my mother's boyfriend. He is trying to be good to us but he can't walk too good. Please Santa, don't forget us please. I am 14 years old. I would like a leather coat cause we have to walk to school and it is cold in the morning. My sisters need a coat, too. My mother said she would buy us coats for Christmas but now she's not around. Love you.

Santa, How are you? I hope you are in good health. You have a lot of work ahead of you. I am 11 years old. I live alone with my mother and I don't have many toys or friends. I like the Power Rangers. The Green Ranger is my favorite. That's what I would like for Christmas, a Talking Green Ranger. Thank you so much, Santa. I love you.

Dear Santa, I am six years old. I want a nice big kids Bible so I can take it to church and some pretty shoes for church. Thank you Santa.

Ms. Hernandez can recall many cold, starlit nights when she delivered presents to children whose families had no means for getting to the Post Office.

One year, a letter came in from an older woman. She was caring for her own children and her grandchildren; none had coats. Ms. Hernandez went to visit. ''The children were going to school in 20-degree weather in sweaters,'' she said.

The grandmother didn't actually ask for anything. She just knew one of her youngest grandsons wanted to see Santa Claus.

''So I went back to the post office,'' Ms. Hernandez, ''and we got coats for every one of those kids, and toys and all kinds of food. And one of the guys, who'd never been involved in the program before, dressed up as Santa.

''We got there and this woman had the humblest of houses but it was spotless and those children were loved. You should have seen the look on the faces of the children when they saw Santa. There had to be 11 or 13 children, ranging from 1 to 15. We were about to leave and one little boy looked up and said, 'Hey Santa? Where's Rudolph parked?'

''Our guy in the Santa suit had tears in his eyes and so did I,'' she said. ''You see their faces pressed against the door and you know that for a split second they've forgotten all about poverty, and the violence in the streets, and they believe in Santa Claus.''

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Joan Jett Meets Jennifer Rizzotti

The New York times
By JACKIE FITZPATRICK

Published: April 07, 1996

Who can take the world on with her smile?

Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?

Well, it's you girl and you should know it.

With each glance and every little movement you show it.

Love is all around, no need to fake it.

You can have the town, why don't you take it?

You're gonna make it after all.

THINK the Mary Tyler Moore show theme, and you probably think perky and sweet; you think Mary tossing her hat in the air. But give the song to Joan Jett and suddenly you've got a rockin', rollin' anthem for any girl or woman who has a dream, whether it be to get through traffic on a Friday afternoon or take home a National Championship basketball title.

What was supposed to be a 30-second spot to promote women's basketball and ESPN's broadcasting of the women's Final Four, has struck a chord. As soon as ESPN broadcast the commercials -- showing women's teams including UConn's Huskies -- the network was deluged with calls asking what it was they were hearing. Could that be Mary's song? By Joan Jett? And could they get a copy?

Jett quickly returned to the studio and recorded a longer version of "Love Is All Around," which is now being released as a single and getting lots of air time.

The song has become emblematic of the skyrocketing popularity of women's college basketball, due in no small part, say folks at ESPN, to the Huskies' dream season last year and their fight nearly to the finish this year. The March 29 semifinal game between UConn and Tennessee was the most watched women's college basketball game ever, according to ESPN, with a 2.5 share in the ratings, as 1.7 million households around the country tuned in.

"People are talking not about what a great women's basketball game it was, but what a great basketball game it was," said Judy Fearing, senior vice president for consumer marketing at ESPN. And that, she said, makes it clear that women's basketball has "risen to a whole new level."

They're also talking about the song. The unlikely pairing of a leather-clad rock star with, say, a Jennifer Rizzotti blazing down the court in uniform and kneepads actually isn't all that much of a stretch.

The Writer: Bringing a Story to Life

By JACKIE FITZPATRICK
Published: April 6, 1997

TWO telephone calls changed Wally Lamb's life. The first came on the last day of school in 1991. Mr. Lamb, a high school English teacher, was in his classroom at Norwich Free Academy, packing things up for the summer.

Actually, he was on his hands and knees, trying to scrape up a piece of gum that had been bothering him for months, when the classroom phone rang. It was his agent on the line. His first novel, ''She's Come Undone,'' had just been sold to a publisher (Washington Square/Pocket).

It seems Judith Regan, then of Pocket Books and now the president and publisher of Regan Books, a HarperCollins imprint, had come out of the delivery room after giving birth to her daughter and picked up the manuscript. She raced through all 465 pages. ''I just fell in love with the book,'' she said. ''It's one of those rare books that affects you for life. His character, Dolores Price, is so genuine and original. She's lovable, hateful, tragic, exasperating -- she's everything we are.''

So Ms. Regan told his agents, Linda Chester and Laurie Fox, to call Mr. Lamb and let him know the book was sold. Mr. Lamb stood there a minute in the classroom that day, in silence. He'd spent eight years writing that book, the story of Dolores, a character whose voice first came to him, he said. when he was taking a shower. It is the journey of one woman, from adolescence to adulthood, a woman who loses her way but eventually finds it again.

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A Snowstorm Alters Life's Rhythms

By JACKIE FITZPATRICK

The New York Times
Published: January 14, 1996

AS the storm danced its way into Connecticut last week, its fancy footwork brought the state to a standstill. On Monday, three- and four-foot snow drifts hobbled the postal service and railroads, and closed schools, businesses, banks and stores.

While there was some debate among weather experts as to whether the storm was in fact a blizzard, a spokesman for the National Weather Service said it was, at least on the Connecticut coast, where winds gusted to 40 miles an hour and the storm dumped 27 inches of snow on Darien, 26 on Milford and 17.5 inches on New Haven.

Was it one of the biggest storms ever? "Didn't even make the top 10," said Paul Head, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass. "In the blizzard of 1880, 50 inches of snow fell in Middletown."

Still, it was, as the Commissioner of Transportation J. William Burns said, "a very tough storm both because of the number of hours it took until it was finished and the snowfall per hour, which in some places was three inches."

This is already shaping up to be one of the more difficult winters in recent years. "It's been an especially bad early winter," he noted. "Usually we get our tougher storms in late January and February." And no one could do much more than guess what this weekend would bring.

Last week, there was drama. A West Haven couple had to battle the blizzard, a snowed-in car and other obstacles to get to the hospital for their baby's birth. And at least three deaths could be attributed to the storm, with two people suffering fatal heart attacks after shoveling snow. Anxious homeowners in shorefront towns had to worry not only about the blizzard but also about the possibility of flooding (major flooding did not occur). People were stranded at closed airports and others with cars stuck along the roadways.

But there were also little blessings to be counted, as many residents opted to take Gov. John G. Rowland's advice and stay home. They hunkered down with a good book, a cup of hot chocolate and relished a chance to play hookey legitimately.

And some all around heroes came to the fore, like Bruce Hansen of Shelton, who hopped into his four-wheel-drive truck Sunday morning and spent most of the next two days shuttling nurses and other essential workers back and forth to their shifts at Bridgeport Hospital.

Mr. Hansen's wife, Pam, is a nurse at the hospital and he knew how important it was to get her to work, so he decided to take anyone who needed a ride. "My shift was cancelled at Sikorsky so I figured, why not," he said. "The main roads were plowed but during the storm the secondary roads weren't and people with small vehicles just weren't getting through."

Hope Regan, senior vice president for patient care services at Bridgeport Hospital, coordinated a command center that had dozens of volunteers with four-wheel-drive vehicles shuttling doctors, nurses, dieticians. "The hospital is full and we needed our people in," she said. "We received a tremendous response from the community. We also had many employees trading and sharing child care so they could get to work. It was a real example of compassion and giving. We couldn't have operated without all the help."

Ms. Regan said about 65 members of the staff bunked overnight at the hospital last Sunday, sleeping in empty rooms at the nursing school -- anywhere there was space.

Perhaps no one's storm-forced sleeping arrangements were as well known as the Action News 8 television anchor Ann Nyberg's, who dozed during newsbreaks in the station's greenroom in her daughter's little pink sleeping bag. Somehow word of it got on the air and news crews out on assignment were asked by people on the street how Ms. Nyberg was faring in her sleeping bag.

She just chuckled over it. "Yes, yes, that pink sleeping bag," she said. Ms. Nyberg said she always has it packed, along with a toothbrush and other essentials, when a storm looms. She usually bakes before leaving for the station, so her fellow workers have comfort food, but this time there wasn't time. "So I bought stuff," she said.

Being the anchor for breaking news is an exhilarating part of her job. "When you've covered spot news for 17 or 18 years, doing this puts you to the test," she said. "There are no scripts, it's all ad lib and you feel like you're providing an incredibly important service to viewers."

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At UConn, How It Was With Harry at the Helm

By JACKIE FITZPATRICK
Published: March 24, 1996

HARRY HARTLEY is a pump-your-hand kind of guy. He walks around campus in a UConn sweatsuit, nor does he mind when a man in a pick-up truck dispenses with the formality usually offered a university president and shouts, "Hey Harry -- howsit goin'?"

"Fine," he calls back, chuckles.

As he walks, it keeps happening -- these hey's and hi's from all over. Then, suddenly, Dr. Hartley sprints away, toward a crowd he has spied in front of the UConn Co-op.

It is a group of high school students and their parents taking a tour of the university. Dr. Hartley steps right in, introduces himself as the president of the University of Connnecticut and quickly engages the prospective students, especially a couple of quiet ones standing on the fringe.

Read more at: http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/24/nyregion/at-uconn-how-it-was-with-harry-at-the-helm.html

Jackie Fitzpatrick Hennessey

Sample of Articles ~ The New York Times

The Writer: Bringing a Story to Life

At UConn, How It Was With Harry at the Helm

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