In July of 1948, Des Moines was besieged by an epidemic of polio, which filled all the hospitals, primarily with children. The Sister Kenny treatment was used involving hot water and wool blanket. The demand for blankets was so great it put them in short order. An appeal was made for donations of wool blankets of all kinds for hospital use.

This is when the members of DMRAA under the leadership of the late Bob Evans, W0AUL, set out to make pickups from home contributions with their mobile units until these blankets were all taken to the hospitals in Des Moines and the shortage was taken care of.

At this particular time, amateur radio was in its infancy in mobile operation. Almost all mobile communications were commercial conducted by the police, fire, and taxi cabs. The amateurs did have rebuilt commercial units along with home built gear built by themselves so the opportunity to be of service was very clear, and with the eager cooperation of our members it was obvious that we could be of help with our mobile communications in the city.

During November of 1948 as Bob Evans and myself were trying to think or some activities to keep the interest of mobile communications the idea came up, how about a Christmas pickup and delivery or food and toys by our people for several unfortunate families.

Plans were made and donations were collected the Sunday before Christmas that year. These were taken to a point where late in the afternoon of December 24th, Earl Reynolds, W0BEE, and myself, with a large truck delivered the donations to three families, name given to us by Polk County Welfare.

The first stop was an elderly couple much in need, the second was a family of four in the same condition. The last was a large family of a couple with twelve small children. Although Earl and myself were late getting home to our own families about nine o’clock that Christmas Eve night, it gave me a spirit of Christmas that I have never forgotten. The thought of those small children unloading the toys and food from that truck still remains on my mind.

Operation Santa Claus was born that night.

In 1949, we expanded ouroperation and put out a greater call for donations and took care of more people, picking up and delivering all we received ourselves.

The next year, all of the donations we received went to Polk County Welfare as we again were unable to do both services. We knew that it would take care of many families who would not be able to have a good Christmas, but we missed the actual seeing of the people receiving the benefits of our work.

The next year, we lined up with the Bidwell community which was located on the southeast side to handle our distribution. But again we had grown so much they were unable to take care of all of it.

We then solicited the help of the Volunteers of America, a relief organization and for the next few years until they ceased their operations operation in Des Moines, we concentrated on picking up all the donations and they took over distribution to the needy. They really had all the facilities to get this done and even our antennas, equipment and dispatching was handled from their warehouse and they did a fine job.

After Volunteers of America left Des Moines, we contacted several radio stations in the city, finally tying up with KRNT Radio. This continued for many years and we received and enjoyed great cooperation from KRNT and their people. In those days, we would start Operation Santa Claus at 9 in the morning and continuing on until 11 that night. Our mobiles being in the greater Des Moines area from 15 to 17 hours as the station continued to call us for donations all that time. We again attempted the redistribution by ourselves but were convinced that we could not do both so we asked St. Vincent de Paul to take over the distribution of the food, toys, clothing, and money which they did, and we were very grateful to them.

Little by little KRNT brought in the service of KRNT-TV, which gave us added publicity before and during our operation.

Finally, with the sale of KRNT Radio, we stayed with their TV facilities. Their call letters were changed to KCCI-TV and they gave us more on the air time the day of our operation, which continued to make us grow. We have also been joined by other fine companies and they along with the Iowa National Guard have assisted greatly.

It has been my good fortune to be with Operation Santa Claus these 38 years since its start, and I served as general chairman for 26 years before present Chairman Carmi Smith, W0JOC, took over. It has been a personal satisfaction for myself and Bob Evans if he was still here to have established this operation and We are extremely grateful to all the radio amateurs who have kept it going.

So on behalf of Bob Evans and myself we say: YOU PEOPLE ARE THE GREATEST!

— John Moffet, W0SVD, July 28, 1986

(Original copy of the text can be found here in PDF format.)