‘Secret Sleigh’ Brings Santa to Homebound Kids

— -- Lily Portillo, 13, has acute special needs, chronic illness and needs machines to help her breathe. When her mom, Sarah, was thinking last year about how to get Lily out of the house to see Santa, she came up with an idea.

“In a flash, I had this image of Santa coming to our home to visit her,” Sarah Portillo said.

Now Lily along with a growing number of other medically fragile children in different states are getting visits from Santa at home.

Portillo of Loveland, Colorado, launched the all-volunteer Secret Sleigh Project last year after she couldn't find any existing service that brings Santa to visit children at their homes.

She started with a plea to her network on social media.

“Within two days, I had Santa. And over the next two weeks, he visited 16 more children” in Colorado, Portillo said.

This year, the project has expanded and Santa will this weekend visit at least 55 children, including the siblings of homebound kids, in states from Colorado to Arizona and Wisconsin. The merry gentleman in red will have photographers along with him to record the visits for mementoes as well as music therapists to sing carols.

The visits are planned as surprises for the children, which is part of the reason behind the initiative's name. Parents can explain to their children that Santa had to come in a car because a sleigh would just attract too much attention.

Elke Kliewer, a 2-year-old in Fort Collins, Colorado, was among the children visited at home by Santa last year.

Her mother, Stephanie, told ABC News her daughter has spinal muscular atrophy type 1.

“Her body does not create a protein that is necessary for her muscles to function," Stephanie Kliewer said. The child depends upon a ventilator to breathe and a tube to swallow and eat.

"She cannot talk. She cannot smile. She cannot move any part of her body, except for her arms -- which for [spinal muscular atrophy] is a very rare gift,” Elke's mother said. “She can’t sit up and has to lay flat most of the day to breathe."

But, Stephanie added, "She is completely cognitive and can feel everything.”

And while the circumstances under which Elke met Santa were not typical, her reaction most certainly was.

“She was OK with Santa from afar, but when he got close she cried," Stephanie said. "As much as I hated that she was afraid of him, it was a pretty rare treat to watch Elke have a typical kid experience. I got to have that classic photo and moment that countless families have of their kids at Christmas, where the child’s face is the same shade of red as Santa's jacket. She liked him again when he was farther away and enjoyed showing Santa and Mrs. Claus her fish tank."

Being the mother of a terminally ill child, Kliewer said, is “hard sometimes mentally and emotionally, but she is so worth it.”

Many children with Elke's condition don't live past 2 years old, she said. Elke is two and a half.

“We are so lucky and grateful to have a third Christmas with her," Stephanie said. "As her mom, I spend most of my time in awe of her accomplishments more so than focused on her differences. Sometimes I forget that she is disabled, because she is so amazing in so many ways.”

Chloe Cooper, 7, of Loveland, Colorado, Goldenhar syndrome. Her mother said that “along with multiple facial anomalies including no ears, she breathes through a [tracheostomy tube] and receives all her nutrition through a feeding tube.”

The mom, Jennie Cooper, told ABC News her family limits outings in the winter months to avoid germs.

Chloe, she said, “is happy, kind, a miracle and a blessing to all who meet her.”

Last year, Sarah Portillo asked the Coopers if Santa could come see Chloe at her home.

“Chloe felt on top of the world to have such a special thing happen to her," her mother said. "It was a very wonderful special experience I know none of us will forget.”

Staci Thompson said her family will also long remember daughter Emma's experience last year.

"When Santa and Mrs. Clause visited our family it was such an unforgettable experience that my family still talk about to this day," Thompson told ABC News. Emma, now 4, was born premature and was in neonatal intensive care for about three months. She has a tracheostomy tube to breathe and a feeding tube to eat. She has several diagnoses.

“Without this amazing event, neither of my children would have been able to visit with Santa,” Thompson said. “She[Emma] is an extremely energetic, compassionate, very expressive, incredibly intelligent and fearless little girl.”

The project organizer, Portillo, hopes that by sharing the story of the Secret Sleigh initiative, others will start similar efforts around the world.

Portillo said she gets as much out of the experience as the children. “This is my Christmas come early,” she said.