Thanks to the hard work of Santa’s Christmas Elves, members of the American Legion Hughes-Pittinger Post 26 received some holiday cheer from Powell’s local elementary school students, including students from Powell Christian School.

“I got some letters and Christmas cards in the mail, and they were a surprise,” said Steven Olsen, first vice commander. “I called a few other Legionnaires and they go, ‘Yeah we got some too, nobody has any idea where all that came from.’”

Olsen’s response when asked about the letters by post commander Tim Heine, was, “It must have been Santa Claus.”

Heine’s pen pal wished him a Merry Christmas, and also informed the Legion commander he likes to play Minecraft. Sent with the letter was a picture of a train for Heine to keep. Heine wasn’t able to respond before the New Year but he plans to. He also said as a legion they plan on continuing to provide the schools with a list of names so the kids can personalize a card and receive a response back.

Another one of the letters read:

“Thank you for being brave. You are a Hero. Thank you for fighting for our country. Thank you for giving our country freedom.

“I hope you will have a Merry Christmas.”

If he had to guess, Olsen said that the process of commissioning and collecting cards from Powell’s elementary schools probably took the Christmas Elves roughly a week’s worth of time.

Some of Olsen’s letters came with store bought cards that the students had also written in. 

In return, the American Legion sent each school a letter back — Powell Christian School’s was posted on their bulletin board. 

At the Legion’s Christmas Party, the library also had some cards to give out to the local veterans.

“We had this big pack of Christmas cards that we got from the library, a bunch of kids that went in there and made Christmas cards,” Olsen said. “So Santa was very involved this year.”