Judy Santiago - Testimonial

My husband Joe was a wonderful husband and father and we had a very happy and busy life together. I worked in the semiconductor industry, retiring from National Semiconductor after thirty-five years in sales and marketing, and Joe kept busy running Santiago Roofing. As our children grew older and moved out on their own we started doing more volunteer work and in December of 1983 Santa visited Alviso for the first time. After that first visit the word soon spread that Santa was available and, since he didn't charge a fee for his time, before we knew it we were getting calls in July and August for a Santa 'booking' in December. It was just a given that no events were booked before Alviso picked their day but once that happened we would always try and fill all the other requests too. I soon had to start a separate calendar just for these requests and fortunately for me I always had a very understanding boss because many of these events were held during the week days. It was just a known fact that if Santa had a booking then Mrs. Claus was not going to show up for work during that time because she had a previous commitment with Santa.

Alviso became such a big part of our life and family that when my husband passed away in July of 2002 my son Danny said he wanted to take his father's place and continue the Santiago legacy. Santiago Santa II now marks the date on his calendar each year so you will continue to see us, along with our other family members and friends, continuing on in my husband's memory. Little did we realize that one small event way back in 1983 would grow into this wonderful non-profit foundation that we have now formed with the help of our many friends and volunteers. Our main goal of this foundation is to help raise money for the youth of Alviso and to start awarding scholarships that will help them further their education and become useful citizens that we can all be proud of. Our board members and volunteers all donate their time without drawing a salary so all the money we are able to raise will be going directly into the foundation where it rightfully belongs.