While most American children wait all year for Christmas morning to arrive so they can be inundated with gift boxes filled with toys, clothes and the like, there are plenty of children out there, who are not as fortunate to receive all these gifts, and be able to truly enjoy the holiday season.

Levittown resident and volunteer firefighter Clifford Archer, 49, realizes this, and for 19 years now, has been personally delivering toys, clothing and food to underprivileged families on Christmas. The United States Post Office has had a program called "Operation Santa" since the 1920s where children's "Dear Santa" letters were then retrieved by postal employees and they donated as much as they could to the needy children.

As the amount of letters have continued to grow over the years, now to over 400,000 annually, the public has gotten more and more involved in the giving spirit. By going to your local post office and filling out some paperwork, you can participate as well. This year Archer dealt with five separate letters, which consisted of 14 different children. Over the past 19 years, he has helped out 400-500 underprivileged kids.

"We now deal more with giving clothing and food as that's what they really need," Archer said. "But Christmas isn't the same without toys so we try to give them board games, and things like that. You wouldn't believe some of these children haven't even played a board game before and it gives them something to do with their family on Christmas."

Addressing the needs of these five letters requires about three weeks of work. In buying clothes for the kids, Archer needs to find out sizes of all the children. His helpers, co-workers Mildred Lizardi and Joey Lindicy assist in doing that. Some of these gifts are bought by Archer's team and others are donated as well.

The most impressive part of this whole operation is the personal delivery of the gifts. "Most times we visit families that might be living in illegal buildings, just so they have a roof over their heads," Archer said. This year his team traveled to Long Island City, Elmhurst, Jamaica, Corona and Whitestone. Most participants in the "Operation Santa" program just send their contributions in the mail, but Archer doesn't want to miss the look on the children's faces.

Archer's work has been flying under the radar for quite some time now. "The New York Post actually called the post office and they referred them to me," Archer said of a Post article that had him on the cover of the newspaper Christmas Eve. He was also interviewed by CNN two years ago, in a short interview that aired on Christmas Day 2004.

Archer is a Woodhaven native, and is the vice president of construction for New York State Housing Finance that helps build housing for the homeless. His volunteer firefighting in Levittown is for Engine No. 2, under Captain Dan Lennon.

"This is just such a wonderful program," Archer says proudly. "These families we help are practically one paycheck away from being homeless." Clifford Archer lives in Levittown with his family that consists of his wife Joanne, and daughters Valerie, 15 and Danielle, 12.