Christmas Seals: Holiday stickers for charity
November 4, 2007
The holidays are a time of giving. One way that you can give this holiday season is to buy Christmas Seals. Christmas Seals are holiday themed stickers that are put on envelopes and the money made from their sales go to different lung and respiratory disease associations across the globe.
Christmas Seals were first sold in 1904 when a postal worker in Denmark came up with the idea of selling a holiday themed seal for envelopes and using the money to help fight tuberculosis, which at the time was the leading cause of death.
Three years later, Christmas Seals found their way into North America. A sanitarium in Delaware was going to be closed down unless it raised $300. A woman named Emily Bissell had read about the seals in a magazine article a friend from Denmark had sent her and thought it would be a great way to raise the money. The next year the seals were sold in Canada to raise money for tuberculosis hospitals.
Today, money made from Christmas Seals goes towards research and treatment of tuberculosis as well as other respiratory diseases like asthma, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis. Christmas Seals can be purchased at the American Lung Association’s holiday card store.