A look ahead at the Black Santa Project with Auon’tai Anderson, but first up Free Haircuts.

We sat down with Auon’tai Anderson, former DPS Board Chair who, along with brother jeff fard and an army of volunteers, helped lead the Black Santa Project on Welton Street which started in 2021. Auon’tai is an energetic, magnanimous personality who cares deeply about the local community. While still in his twenties, his resume of giving back is already long. It only took one question to get him talking about Black Santa though. 

YS: Tell us how the Black Santa Project got started.

Auon’tai: This is our third year. brother jeff called me and said; “Hey, Miss Pam Jiner who runs an organization for seniors just called me about doing a toy giveaway. The person who was supposed to be her Black Santa was unable to show up. Can you help figure something out to see how we can help Miss Pam out?”

I said, “Well, I have a red tracksuit, and I can go to Party City and buy a beard and a wig. That was in 2021. So, I showed up with a red Nike tracksuit and white tennis shoes – Air Force ones, had a beard and Santa hat, and the whole getup. 

The kids who thought I was Santa Claus appreciated the diversity by giving them Black Santa. Also, a Santa that was non-traditional who wasn’t just the big jolly suit and cufflinks. 

YS:  He looked like them.

Auon’tai: Correct. So I looked directly like those who we were serving. 

We had a surplus of toys, so Pam brought them to brother jeff’s Cultural Center, and that is when the Black Santa Project on Welton Street was born on December 23, 2021. We did a two-day toy giveaway, the line wrapped around brother jeff’s Cultural Center. We saw there was a great need. 

At first, I thought it was just gonna be a one-time thing. But brother jeff was like, now we’re gonna have to do it again.

It took off last year which was our smallest out of the last three years because we couldn’t get the order from Toys for Tots in time. So we had to raise money and most of the donations came from everyday folks in the community. Last year we only were able to serve 500 children, because we had a limited amount of toys. Mile High Comics donated thousands of dollars worth of action figures and comic books to support the event. We had local nonprofits that were able to donate their extra toys. 

We planned our toy giveaway from December 22nd through the 24th because most toy giveaways had already happened by then. We like to be able to be that last stop for a family to make sure there are presents under the tree.

YS: When did you start doing Free Photos?

Auon’tai: We did three rounds of pictures with Black Santa last year which was the newest component that we added to the Black Santa Project.

This year, we were almost in a similar situation as last year. We originally did not get approved to get our Toys for Tots order because our order had gotten lost. So we had to resubmit and just had to patiently wait to see if we were going to get anything. Just in case, we had started a fundraiser. But the fundraiser link was just not working, and people weren’t donating. We weren’t getting anybody to buy the toys that we needed. And so it was looking very bleak up until December 16th when Toys for Tots notified us that we had been approved to get a donation. Which we were ecstatic about.

However, the max you can get from Toys for Tots is 700 toys. Fortunately, we made a connection with Miss Norma Jean, she’s the Executive Director of Ivan’s Crib. She owns a warehouse where Toys for Tots operates their regional base out of the Denver Metro area. While she didn’t have to, she had a surplus of toys that she donated. 

She actually called us back twice and said, “I want to fill your U-Haul up. I know the work that you all are doing, and I want to make sure that you can serve the kids in your community.”

She filled our 15-foot U-Haul truck up three times in total — all the way up to the roof, which we estimated was about 10,000 toys.

In part, the Black Santa Project was in response to the Cherry Creek Mall, which has limited Black Santa availability. The pricing structure was inaccessible as well, the lowest-priced package was $40. And the limited days they had Black Santa, my recollection is, that all of them were during working hours. 

When you have working-class families this experience should be tailored towards those individuals’ needs to be able to have the accessibility to take part in having their picture taken with Santa without the financial burdens, or also worrying about getting there. They have to pay for parking at the mall and many are thinking, If I only have $40, I don’t have the extra to go above and beyond for this experience. 

So we made a decision, as a team, to open this up to do a free professional picture with Black Santa. 

This year, we were able to get photographers to donate their time on December 10th and 16th. We were open from 11 am-4 pm on Saturday. Over those two events, we served almost 130 families who were able to get a free picture with Black Santa. Not only that, in addition to photos with Black Santa, we now have created ‘Auntie Claus.’ We wanted to ensure that those families have their special holiday pictures for years to come. 

This year we had people lining up at brother jeff’s Cultural Center as early as 7 am when the event didn’t start until 11 am. We served over 3000 children. We packed up every single toy in less than two and a half hours thanks to all the volunteers who came out. 

Because there was such a high turnout, we had to cancel our December 23rd event. We were able to find other giveaways that were happening to direct people to, but we still had people coming in the hundreds on that Saturday, just looking for toys. 

The need for toys is there and the mission of the Black Santa Project is that no child should have to go without a toy during the Holiday. 

Personally, I know what that means, I know what it feels like to wake up and not have anything under the tree. I never want any of our young people to have to experience that, especially since we can do something about it. 

We’re already gearing up for 2024, which is just 362 days away from the next Black Santa event.  

We’re focusing on what this looks like. We’ve realized that this is not a two-week or a-month sort of planning thing. We’ve already discussed, as different partners come on board with this project, that we’re going to need to start in July – or even earlier.

We are going to add more components to the Black Santa experience. Be on the lookout to see some new things coming, I can’t release them just yet, but some new exciting things are coming in 2024. 

We’re hoping to spread holiday cheer. 

We’re going to be coming off of a very trying time, the soul of our nation will be at stake in 11 months. We want to be able to be the bright spot for our community members in December, and even leading up until then, because I know a lot of people are going to be focusing on this election that is happening. But we also want to make sure that when the election is over, folks still have resources in our community, because the need is there. 

And so we’ll be starting early this upcoming year.  We are creating a long-term strategy. What does it look like to get the support to have a staff be a formal organization that can do this work all year round?

My dream is to be able to go to my old high school – Manual High School in DPS – to fill up their gym with toys for children and families. Manual High School has the largest gym in the district. That’s the overarching goal for us in five to ten years because we believe that it’s possible.

And we have so many new folks that are coming to our communities they deserve to also be at home for the holidays.  That’s why we didn’t do registration this year because we wanted people to be able to come and be a part of this experience with us and feel at home. We want our migrants to feel at home in Denver, and let them know that they are welcome. 

We’re gonna continue to do innovative ideas over the years to come. I look forward to maybe one day hosting the Black Santa Gala, where we have to book out the Hyatt because we have such a large event, that we have donors and folks across the state coming to support this mission and this vision.

I also believe that we can do a lot of good work year-round because Christmas is not just about December. Christmas, to me, is about a season to give. We can continue to give throughout the year – that is the Christmas spirit. We don’t have to wait until December to give.

We can even have a birthday fund for kids to have a special birthday party. There are things that we can expand beyond our imagination about where this can go. It’s a nonpartisan issue, a nonpolitical thing. I hope that we can be a place of community where we can bring opposing sides together and say let’s focus on our children. Let’s be able to continue to serve them to make sure they have the best experience for their celebrations. 

YS: You said it is non-partisan, but you had a woman giving you a hard time about Black Santa. When was the first known Black Santa in America or has it always been around and we just didn’t know about it?

Auon’tai: I’m not sure when it started, I am sure our ancestors had characters. I grew up with Black Santa figurines at my house. My aunties and my grandmother all had different Black Santa figurines that they would put around the house, but I never saw a black Santa while I was growing up. I’d never met a black Santa until I started to explore what this looks like for me to become a Black Santa.

There have been Black Santas that have come before me and are still doing the work, and I want to honor them for paving the path for others to step up.

I do know that there’s a study that CPR looked into multicultural Santas and they are only 5% of Santas worldwide. That’s significant, I’m a 5%’er in the term, being a part of a group of individuals around the world that are bringing multicultural lenses to the Santa experience. 

Let’s not forget this is a fictional character. This is not trying to destroy somebody’s childhood. 

YS: We saw that woman who was commenting about how wrong it is to have a Black Santa. Are you getting much of that?

Auon’tai: No, not really. I see that when Denver 7 did a story on it, people were like, “Will this Black Santa serve white kids?” We not only have white children that were served, we have black children, Asian children, Latino children, and AAPI children. We serve everyone regardless of where they come from, who they love, how they identify, or what their socioeconomic status is. 

I hope the people who feel triggered about a Black Santa will also have the same outrage when other pressing issues need and require our attention. 

This is the same stuff the Little Mermaid went through when they announced that she would be black and people lost their minds about changing a historical figure. It’s a cartoon, right? 

If we didn’t have the society that we lived in, where there was a white-dominated culture, I’m sure that this would not be a story, this would be the norm for everybody across the community. But because America has been deeply rooted in systems of oppression and racism, we have conditioned ourselves that these fictional characters, all they could be are old white men.

YS: You’re making me realize that my gigantic Santa collection I started well before my son was born 28 years ago has no multicultural Santas. They’re all old white men. You’ve inspired me to start diversifying my Santa collection. 

I love the idea of the project and where you guys are taking it and it just started by filling in, do you still wear the tracksuit?

Auon’tai: There are occasions where the tracksuit warrants, but we have moved and adopted the Santa Claus outfit, just because kids can immediately respond to the Santa Claus versus the tracksuit. We are talking about what future outfits for Santa and Auntie Claus will look like too. We’re having so many conversations. People will start to see some fun, new additions in the next coming year.

YS: Do you think you’ll extend it with more days since you had such a turnout for it? 

Auon’tai: I envision for 2024 that every weekend will have something going on in December, whether that be pictures or even Brunch with Santa. The possibilities are endless for what we can offer. 

We are considering all of our options for how we can make this even better. We’re going to be doing a lot of collaboration. We want to reach out to a lot of folks that are already in this space – because we often as a black community, are fighting for the same crumbs. It is time for us to come together with all of our crumbs and create our own pie. I would like to collaborate with others to figure out how we can support each other. Because there is space for all of us to do all of the things that we’re doing. We just have to be willing and open to having those open lines of communication and sharing.

YS: How can people reach out and get involved?

Auon’tai: They can email us at [email protected]

And in the spirit of giving year-round, Auon’tai and others have created a new event, FREE Back to School Haircuts on January 2nd, 2024. Local leaders, Denver City Councilwoman Shontel M. Lewis, Cesar the Barber, CEO of the Give Back, The Honorable Auon’tai M. Anderson, and Denver School Board Directors Scott Esserman and Michelle Quattlebaum, are hosting the Free Haircut event, on January 2nd at 12:30 pm at the Hiawatha Davis Jr. Recreation Center. No registration is required.