Sleigh Bells and Santa provides scholarships to children of fallen truckers

The children enrolled in the Sleigh Bells and Santa program will find a little something extra in their stockings for Christmas this year – the potential for a college education.

Robert Palm, founder of the charity, says this year the program – which provides toys and gifts to children of truck drivers who have passed away – is giving each child a $500 529 College Education Fund.

Palm – who started Sleigh Bells and Santa in 2015 as an offshoot of another charity he helped found, Trucker’s Final Mile – said they wanted to do more for these kids this year.

“We wanted to do something for Christmas season for them not to let them know that their extended trucking family cares and that we’re thinking about them and that we’re there for them as well,” Palm said in an interview with Land Line Now. “Whatever we could do that helped make it a little easier.”

Nominations for children to be in the program – as well as donations for the program itself – are open until Dec. 20. Palm says there are 21 children enrolled in the Sleigh Bells and Santa program this year.

“When these children grow up, those monies will be there for them to make a choice in their lives as to whether or not they want to go to either a community college or, you know, a (four-year) college, that they can get an education and or at least to start for an education,” he said. “And it will come from their trucking community.”

Listen to Sleigh Bells and Santa founder Robert Palm on Land Line Now

To nominate a child, send a detailed email with verifying information to SleighBells@TruckersFinalMile.org. Gifts can be donated to Truckers Final Mile; 3301-R Coors Blvd. NW 293; Albuquerque, NM 87120. The gifts should be shipped unwrapped, and the deadline is also Dec. 20.

To make a tax-deductible contribution to Truckers Final Mile or the Sleigh Bells and Santa program, click here.

Read more

Truckers are kind and giving year-round, but they always bring it big around the holidays. Read more about various fundraising efforts in our article “Season of Giving” from the December-January issue.

Land Line Now’s Terry Scruton contributed to this report.