Rowan paleontologist grants Christmas wish to Pa. girl on ABC’s “Dear Santa” series

ABC television this holiday season is broadcasting a series of stories featuring children across America, their wondrous belief in Santa and their hope that any wish can come true.

The series was inspired by the U.S. Postal Service’s Operation Santa campaign, which since 1912 has encouraged children to write Santa via the USPS.

The second episode in the six-story Dear Santa series, which airs in the Philadelphia market at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10, on 6ABC WPVI-TV, features Maddie, a six-year old Pennsylvania girl, and Rowan University paleontologist Dr. Kenneth Lacovara.

Maddie loves fossils and wrote Santa about her dream to one day hunt for them. Lacovara, a world-renowned scientist who discovered one of the largest dinosaurs ever found, runs the Jean & Ric Edelman Fossil Park of Rowan University in Mantua Township, N.J., and helped make Maddie’s dream come true when he welcomed her to the park and introduced her to the art and science of fossil hunting.

 “I love Christmas,” Lacovara says in Dear Santa: Episode 2. “Me and the Big Guy, we’re pretty tight, and when he called me about Maddie, well, he didn’t have to ask twice.”

Recalling the wonderment that he felt as a Cub Scout learning about fossils himself for the first time, Lacovara said he couldn’t resist helping to share that passion with Maddie.

“What better Christmas gift to give a child than joy through discovery and joy through exploration?” he says.

In the Philadelphia area, the entire series will run on 6ABC, ABC Localish and on Hulu. Can't wait? Watch it now!