The holidays ended weeks ago for most of us, but it’s still Christmastime for Steve Albini and his wife, Heather Whinna.

The couple, featured in the Dec. 6 What’s Your Problem?, hoped to make the last of a dozen holiday gift deliveries this week, capping an annual Second City charitable program designed to help some of Chicago’s neediest families.
When the Problem Solver last wrote about Albini and Whinna, the couple was worried that a change in the U.S. Postal Service’s Letters to Santa program would put a damper in Second City’s decade-old giving tradition.

In years past, Second City used the letters to identify needy Chicagoans. Last year, the postal service stopped providing the names and addresses of the letter writers, prompting Albini to worry that those families would not receive help.
Turns out, the Chicago musician and recording studio owner’s concerns were at least partially realized.

The Second City program raised more than $100,000 this year, allowing Albini and Whinna to deliver computers, toys, gift cards and cash to 12 area families. All of the families were identified through the Jane Addams Hull House Association.

Albini said working with the Hull House was great, but all of the families that received help were already receiving assistance from other sources. In years past, when Albini and Whinna used the letters to Santa to identify needy families, most were “off the grid” of social services.

“The difference this year is all of them were somewhat integrated into a structure that was already helping them,” said Albini, who has worked with such bands as the Pixies, Nirvana and Jesus Lizard. “The people we didn’t see are the kind of desperate, on-their-last-legs people who we’re used to seeing.”

Albini said most of the deliveries were made on Christmas day, but a few families were not home. He expected to make the last delivery, to a family with four kids, Tuesday night.

The postal service policy change changed the Second City program, but did not eliminate it, Albini said.

“The food chain of normal people helping other normal people has been interrupted, that’s all,” he said. “Unfortunately, we live in a time where a lot of different people need help.”
Albini said he still hopes to convince the post office to reverse its Letters to Santa policy change.

He’s trying to get a meeting with Postmaster General John Potter.
“I want to introduce him to some of the people we’ve helped,” Albini said. “Through doing this, we’re demonstrated that it’s possible for anyone to help.”