A Tradition of Giving

When Moana Casanova ’04 was in fifth grade, she wanted to test if Santa Claus was real. At age 10, she wrote her holiday wish list, asking Santa to give all the less-fortunate kids in her neighborhood a really great Christmas.

“I thought I would ask for something that only Santa Claus could deliver,” Casanova said about her list. “I had no idea what I meant by that, but I knew that Santa Claus was supposed to be the purveyor of Christmas miracles.”

A few weeks later, she found a box in her fireplace and a letter from Santa Claus with her name on it. The letter said that Santa really appreciated Casanova thinking of others, and it came with gifts of art supplies and books to distribute at a local day care.

As a child, it’s hard to understand the injustices and systemic problems that contribute to divisions and inequities, noted Casanova.

“You sort of understand it on a more basic level as a kid,” Casanova said. “And that was something I just wanted to try and do something about — and I thought that markers and crayons would solve that.”

When she arrived at St. George’s, Casanova approached Carol Hamblet, coordinator of student health services and wife of the late Headmaster Chuck Hamblet, about doing something similar on campus around the holidays. Hamblet suggested Casanova sell poinsettias and, by Christmas, everyone on the Hilltop had one in their room, with all the proceeds benefiting a shelter for women and their children in Newport.

“We did different versions of that over the four years that I was at St. George’s, which was just such an incredible thing,” Casanova said. “The holidays at St. George’s, they’re like the best time of year … and just having my own little project be part of the Christmas experience was something that was superspecial to me and amplified what the holidays are really all about.”

Casanova kept volunteering with various groups while she attended Occidental College. When working at HBO in New York in 2010, she went to the head of her department with the idea of sponsoring Christmas for local families in need. Casanova coordinated with employees, who all pitched in, and created a fund to supply items like clothes, toys, and art supplies for local organizations.

In 2012, Casanova joined the production department for HBO in California and moved to Los Angeles, where she started as an assistant and is now responsible for physical production of HBO’s original series as director of production.

“It’s a lot of nuts and bolts. We’re managing budgets and we’re managing schedules,” Casanova said. “Creating a production plan and … when things change, we problem-solve our way through it.”

Casanova carried the tradition of giving with her to her new department in Los Angeles, where coworkers collected donations to buy gifts for local families and gathered together to wrap them.

“It’s always just been a really wonderful way to bond with friends and colleagues and classmates over the years,” said Casanova, “and to just remember that Christmas is about giving back and sort of sharing those little miracles of getting something — a good fortune — that you may not have known was coming your way.”

In 2015, they started working with a homeless service organization called PATH (People Assisting The Homeless) at its local shelter and day care called Gramercy. The shelter focuses on women who have come off the street with children, according to Casanova, and includes studio apartments located above the day care, so children can attend the day care while their mothers are out working or at school.

In an effort to encourage sponsorship beyond the holidays, PATH asked Casanova if HBO would be interested in sponsoring a single mother with a chance at permanent housing after Christmas.

Since the HBO set furniture and props usually get repurposed on another show or get donated or sold, there was a unique opportunity, according to Casanova, and they decided to furnish the woman’s new apartment when she moved in.

“Because we’re in production, when we create these shows, we’re procuring everything that you see on-screen,” said Casanova. “If you have a set that’s a house, that set is going to have furniture and it’s going to have couches and tables and all the various supplies in the house.”

With a lot of stuff sitting in storage, Casanova and her colleagues got a truck, hired a driver, and took the day off to bring everything over and set up the apartment.

Casanova tried to get the new apartment arranged so that it would feel like home for the mother and her child, going as far as buying laundry detergent and even providing quarters for the laundromat.

“I sort of see things logistically, so when you see that there’s a need

in the community, a lot of times there’s a way to meet the need and solve whatever the problem is,” Casanova said. “It’s really amazing what you can do as a community. None of these things I’ve ever done have been on my own. It’s all been with friends and colleagues and classmates and people like Mrs. Hamblet … it just takes a little bit of coordination, effort, and energy, but you can really make a difference for someone.”