Yes, Virginia, there is a Santaland.

And it is recruiting volunteers starting Saturday at the casino in Chestnut Ridge Park in Orchard Park. There will be an organizational meeting at 1 p.m.

Santaland is the successor to Santa's Park, the Christmas theme event at Chestnut Ridge that died amid Erie County's fiscal crisis last year.

Volunteers created the new event, a scaled-down operation, last year to pick up the slack, and they want to do it again.

This year's event should be bigger and better, said Amy Maxwell of Revitalize Buffalo.

"With the additional time we have to plan this year's event, it will be better and on a larger scale than last year," she said.

Santaland is a production of Revitalize Buffalo and the Western New York Coalition for Progress, which stepped in when Santa's Park was canceled.

It will be held during the weekends of Dec. 9-10 and 16-17.

That doubles the event from one weekend to two. Last year, the groups pulled off Santaland on short notice with 25 to 30 volunteers. They're going to need more help this year.

The groups also have received permission from Erie County to use two of the upper buildings at the park, which they didn't have access to last year. They probably will be used for a post office and Santa's workshop, Maxwell said.

The event will include cocoa and cookies, crafts, music and letters to Santa.

Maxwell said train hobbyists hope to set up a Christmas model train at the site.

Visitors will be asked to bring a donation of baby formula or money for the Food Bank of Western New York.

Alan Bedenko of the Western New York Coalition for Progress said in a statement announcing the event that the donations honor the tradition of taking time at the holidays to focus on children and giving.

"What better way to honor that tradition than to help the neediest in our community get a healthy start as infants?" Bedenko said.

While the groups are doing the event together for a second year, Maxwell said they are looking for partner organizations since they may not be able to do it every year.