Inclusive Letters to Santa - In Braille

For those whose culture recognizes Santa Claus, how do you make “Santa” accessible to everyone? One organization is doing important work this year to help Santa reach the visually impaired. In recent years, we have seen a lot of effort made to make portrayals of Santa more inclusive in gender and race. And for businesses that operate in multiple countries, it’s important to understand how portrayals differentiate worldwide, like Father Ice (Dedt Moroz) in Russia or Papai Noel in Brazil, just to name a couple. 

Over the years, we’ve seen dozens of videos of Mall Santas interactive with deaf and hard-of-hearing children using ASL. Now, we’re seeing efforts to remove another barrier to access to what is an ubiquitous childhood figure for so many. This year, the nonprofit organization VisionCorps, based in Lancaster, PA, started a program so that people with vision impairments could write letters to Santa in Braille, and receive a Braille response back:

“This is the first year of a program the Pennsylvania-based organization hopes to run annually. VisionCorps is encouraging people with vision impairments to practice their Braille skills by writing letters to Santa. The letters, which should be mailed to VisionCorps (with attention to Santa and Erika Rothermel), will then be passed along to Santa. VisionCorps will handle mailing back Santa’s replies in Braille.”

Photo by Eren Li from Pexels

VisionCorps is doing this work to help young people understand and define their visual impairment, learn ways to communicate what helps them and take steps in self-advocacy. 

Is your organization looking for ways to incorporate inclusive programs or volunteer work into your mission? Talk to us to learn more about inclusive strategy.