WYOMING – Christmas came a few days early for seven-year-old Luca Laskaris when he received one of his Christmas wishes from Santa – a Dominic DeLuca football jersey.
DeLuca and his Wyoming Area Warrior teammates captured the PIAA 3A state football championship title a little over two weeks ago at Hersheypark Stadium. DeLuca, playing at quarterback, led his team and came from behind to beat western Pennsylvania’s Central Valley with less than a minute left on the clock. DeLuca took home the game’s MVP award.
Each year, Booyah Burgers and Bites, located in Wyoming, puts out a Letter to Santa box where children will write down a Christmas wish while waiting for food to arrive.
On December 15, Dave and Kristen Favata, owners of the restaurant, collected the Santa notes from the day. Kristen read Luca’s letter and was moved enough to notify Dominic’s mother, Ree Ree DeLuca.
“We always open up the letters and read what the kids want and we had opened up Luca’s letter and saw this,” Favata said. “My husband and I reached out to Ree Ree and asked her if she saw the letter to Santa.”
The Favatas posted the note to Santa on Facebook to see if anyone could locate Luca. At that point in time, the only thing to go on was Luca’s handwriting and signature.
The note read, “Dear Santa I want a dominic deLuca jersey. from Luca.”
“With Wyoming Area being state champions, I thought it was something and I thought we needed to find Luca,” Favata said. “It was a team effort with Ree Ree and Wyoming Area Principal Dave Pacchioni.”
Pacchioni took over and did an investigation at school finding three Lucas in the elementary school.
“I put it on Facebook immediately, Ree Ree DeLuca said. “I called Dave Pacchioni and he said there were three Luca’s. From there, the teachers in the school sent it around and within 10-mintues, we found out who the little boy was.”
The day after Luca’s note went viral locally, Luca’s mother was notified about the note’s circulation.
“He wrote the letter and I told him we will have to see what Santa brings, Casey Laskaris, Luca’s mother, said. “The next day, one of my co-workers saw the post of Facebook and asked me if this was my son and it kind of went from there.”
Initially Kaskaris was concerned on how she was going to fulfill Luca’s wish.
“My co-worker got us (DeLucas) together and we started to communicate back and forth together to make this happen,” Kaskaris said. “I think this is pretty amazing all because a little boy wrote a letter.”
Once found, Ree Ree and Luca’s mom Casey connected and set up a time and date to surprise Luca with DeLuca’s jersey presentation.
The two families, friends and some of the Wyoming Area cheer squad met at Booyah’s in total secrecy to Luca.
Luca was shocked to see DeLuca upon his family’s arrival to Booyah. “Dominic DeLuca,” Luca shouted, as he ran to embrace DeLuca.
When asked why Luca liked DeLuca, he responded, “Because he could stay up with five players on him.”
DeLuca was thrilled by Luca’s request.
“I thought it was awesome and a great honor that someone wants your jersey,” DeLuca said. “It’s a little different in high school, I feel, but it’s great.”
