Hi, my name is Dustin Fulton, the creator of SKINNYSANTA, and the Lead Minister of Restore Community Church in Omaha, NE. I first had the idea for SKINNYSANTA back in 2012. It all started when we began praying with our young children for Street Boys in Nairobi, KN through our friends, Tyler and Amy Maxwell, who serve there as missionaries. We realized that when our kids were praying for the Street Boys but then receiving a ton of gifts for Christmas that something just wasn’t adding up. So we decided we needed to ‘go skinny’ on gifts for each other so that we could help the Street Boys more.

This past year Kristen and I spent some time in Kenya working with the Street Boys. While we were there, we met children that were the same age as our son, who was 5 at the time, living on the streets. We realized that we didn’t even let our son cross the street by himself, and here were children the same age as him living by themselves on the streets. We realized there was a sense of urgency for the church to wake up to this need, and decided that moving forward with SKINNYSANTA was the best way for us to do so.

Our desire is that SKINNYSANTA would be a tool that challenges churches and families to take up the cause of children in need all around the world, whether it be the estimated 100 million street children worldwide, the 670,000 kids in foster care in the US, or the millions of children around us who are growing up spiritually impoverished because of materialism. Together we can show the love of Christ with children in need and raise up the next generation of world changers. So come and take the SKINNYSANTA Challenge with us, and see your community reached in a creative way, the hearts of your church transformed, and children’s lives saved all around the world. We think that would make St. Nick awfully proud!