Feel Good Friday - Operation Santa

The holiday season is upon us! We're in the middle of Hanukkah and Christmas is coming. To help you get in the spirit, today's Feel Good Friday is about Operation Santa.

As explained on their website, "since 1912, postal employees, charities, individual and corporate volunteers have helped children in need experience the magic of the holidays by adopting their letters sent to Santa."

The program started when Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock authorized employees to answer children's letters. It expanded in the 1940s when the volume of letters increased and charitable organizations, corporations and individuals started responding and sending gifts.

Now, Operation Santa has gone digital! There are seven cities across the U.S. where you can select a letter online and then drop off gifts at a designated Post Office: DC, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, New York, San Diego, Austin and Phoenix. If you live in one of these cities and want to participate, check out the FAQs to find out how.

For people living outside of these cities, you can check the Be An Elf website to see locations of Post Offices around the country where you can stop by in person to read and adopt letters, then return to drop off gifts.

If you want to write a letter from Santa to your own child and have it mailed back to you with a North Pole postmark, follow the instructions at Letters from Santa.

To see the results of everyone's good work and make sure you're first to know when everything gets started up next year, like the Facebook page and follow them on Twitter @OperationSanta.

Ho ho ho!

Feel Good Friday - Smithsonian Institution

I've spent this week at a conference in DC, which inspired today's Feel Good Friday, the Smithsonian Institution.

The purpose of the Smithsonian Institution, as explained on their website, is a simple one: "The increase and diffusion of knowledge."

Founded in 1846 using funds donated by British scientist James Smithson, "the Smithsonian has become the world's largest museum, education, and research complex, with 19 museums, the National zoo, and nine research facilities."

I'm hoping to go to one or more of the museums tomorrow but it will be hard to decide which ones. A visit to the website is a great place to see samples of the collections and learn about the options, some of which include:

• National Museum of African American History and Culture - learn about the diversity of the African American experience and how it helped shaped the nation
• National Air and Space Museum - this is where you'll find aircraft, spacecraft and a planetarium
• National Museum of American History - Washington's uniform and Dorothy's ruby slippers are just two of the 3 million objects in this museum
• National Museum of the American Indian - this building was designed in collaboration with Native American tribes and includes objects, photographs and media from the entire Western Hemisphere
• National Museum of Natural History - the largest natural history museum in the world, it's larger than 18 football fields (hmm, maybe one museum will be all I have time for) 

If you're not in DC, you can still learn about and explore your interests. The Smithsonian website has a section with activities and resources for educators, researchers and kids. You can also visit the Smithsonian Channel on YouTube to watch videos about national parks, history, bugs and more!

Inspired by what the Smithsonian is doing? Get involved by becoming one of the 13,000 volunteers. There are opportunities to become a docent, citizen scientist or help with transcribing historical documents. Learn about them all in this short video.

If you don't have time to volunteer, you can still support the Smithsonian by making a donation, liking their Facebook page and following them on Twitter @smithsonian.

Feel Good Friday - Sacramento Tree Foundation

Happy day after Thanksgiving, known in my world as Feel Good Friday! I'm in Sacramento this weekend and want to let you know about a local organization, the Sacramento Tree Foundation.

The mission of the Sacramento Tree Foundation is "building healthy, livable communities in the Sacramento region by growing the best urban forest possible."

Founded on Arbor Day in 1982, the Sacramento Tree Foundation (SacTree) is similar to Friends of the Urban Forest in San Francisco because they both offer education, advice, training and support for people planting trees in the community. Watch this short intro video for an overview.

As they explain on their website, "a healthy tree canopy provides cleaner air and cooler temperatures, replenishes groundwater, enhances public health, and creates vibrant, livable neighborhoods."

There are a variety of programs including: a seedling growing program for 3rd and 4th graders, an urban wood rescue program that salvages urban trees and mills them into usable lumber and the Save The Elms Program which trains citizen scientists to identify Dutch elm disease and provide monitoring data to City of Sacramento staff.

Of everything SacTree does, my favorite is the Free Shade Tree Program. In partnership with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), residents of Sacramento County are eligible to receive up to 10 free shade trees to plant on their property. After meeting with a community forester, residents get to choose from over 30 deciduous trees. To date SMUD and SacTree have given out 450,000 free shade trees!

If you don't live in the county you can check the Shady Eighty list to see what trees are good for the area and watch an instructional video on how to plant a tree.

With the goal of planting 5 million new trees in the region the Sacramento Tree Foundation can use your help. You can become a tree planting and care volunteer, a citizen scientist or if you don't live in the area make a donation and share the social media love by liking their Facebook page and following them on Twitter @SacTree.