Santa’s Castle Fundraiser

Santa’s Castle is back! Visit our News and Events page for more details on this years event.

For more information about Santa’s Castle, you can visit the 2023 event page or Contact Us. Every December since 2008 the North Pole has been transported to our Youth to Youth home offices in the McConnell Center (30 St Thomas Street Dover, NH 03820) in downtown Dover for our annual Santa’s Castle fundraiser. During Santa’s Castle families tour a series of rooms – each room with a different Christmas theme and different set of activities. For example, in Mrs. Clause’s kitchen kids can decorate a cookie and write a letter to Santa. Along the way, our guests are treated to music, meet costumed characters, can choose activities to do, and are assisted by more than 30 of Santa’s elves. The tour ends with a visit with Santa himself.

The lobby is decorated to look like the entrance to the North Pole. This is where families wait to be escorted into the castle. We usually have holiday music playing, members in snowman and gingerbread costumes interacting with the kids, and the past two years we have had a live band playing Christmas music. Families are first guided by an elf into Rudolph’s stable where they can make magic reindeer food and meet Rudolph. After that they are led into Mrs. Clauses Kitchen. In this room there are tables set up where kids can decorate cookies, meet Mrs. Clause, and write a letter to Santa if they want to. Once they are done with those activities they can go to the Elves Toy Workshop. In this room kids can make an ornament, color in holiday pictures, and we have Christmas movies playing. The last room in Santa’s Castle is Santa’s Room. Kids can meet and talk to Santa. Families can also take their own photos or video with Santa or at anytime throughout the Castle. Youth to Youth students spend about 3 weeks transforming five rooms in our office area of the McConnell Center into the Castle. We open Santa’s Castle up to the public for two weekend’s right before Christmas. The experience is designed for children ages 10 and under, but the whole family is invited.

This fundraiser involves all of the members of Y2Y and it is a favorite because students get to dress up and play the role of Elves, Snowmen, Teddy Bear, Toy soldier, and other holiday characters. It takes about 30-35 students each night to run the Castle and make sure all the families are being helped. This is a very unique event to our area and it has been growing in popularity since it was started in 2008. In the gallery below you can find examples of the various costumes of our elves.