Santa Claus is reducing the amount of letters he sends this year as his elves prepare to send text messages to all of the good girls and boys.

In partnership with WebCorp, good old St. Nick has built a charitable ecommerce Web site where parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles can schedule personalized text messages from Santa to be delivered to a loved one's mobile phone at specific times on specific dates. One dollar from each child signed up to receive text messages from Santa goes to the March of Dimes to further its mission in improving the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality.

?Actually the strategy for our Santa Texting idea started grew out of a grass roots business opportunity that was developed by T.J. Kirgin, a March of Dimes volunteer,? said Deborah Kersting, executive director of Greater Missouri?s March of Dimes.

Mr. Kirgin is the father of twins born prematurely and owns Anchor Communications, an advertising and marketing company in St. Charles, MO.

?T.J. wants to give back to the March of Dimes out of gratitude for our Prematurity Campaign and the life-saving research and other programs that benefited his family when his twins were born prematurely,? Ms. Kersting said. ?T.J. lost one of his twins, his daughter Gwenith, to premature birth-related problems in 2002.

?Her brother Thomas survived after almost four harrowing months in a newborn intensive care unit.?

Today, Thomas is 7 years old and has overcome most of the challenges of his premature birth.

Current Text Santa affiliates include over 100 Clear Channel Radio Stations, 82 Shopping Malls, The Salvation Army and mobile marketing firms across the nation.

It costs $5.49 and standard text messaging rates to participate in the program. One dollar from every transaction will be used to support the March of Dimes.

The March of Dimes is providing publicity support to the ?Santa Texting? campaign via traditional media outlets and some social media channels such as its Share Your Story community, blogs and possibly Facebook and Twitter.

?Santa has gone mobile to reduce the amount of trees needlessly laid to waste each year by his ?letters from Santa? program which by the way was just ended in North Pole, Alaska after a run since 1941,? Mr. Kirgin said.

?Many charity companies are turning to mobile,? he said. ?Our company just set up a premium giving campaign for the Salvation Army.

?Mobile is a channel that is not overly used for giving opportunities and the public finds it a fun and engaging, easy way to give.?