About christmas for kids

The Christmas for Kids program originally resided with the police department under the Juvenile Officers Association. At its peak, they would take a truck to Toy R’ Us in Williston and fill it. Over time the program waned and consisted of City Council doing a coin drop and passing that along to organizations like the Salvation Army.

After a lull we started working with the school system and Officer Fleury was the point person. He and his daughter would do all the actual work. They would work with the school to get names of children. Then they would purchase the gifts, wrap them and deliver them to children. However it was still a program administered by the school district and funded by a coin drop done by council.

When the council logistics job passed to me, I wanted to make the Christmas for Kids Program a police department thing again. The children that are receiving the gifts are usually in a poverty status of some sort. With poverty the chances of police interactions elevates. I wanted this program to be greatly associated with the police of Barre. I wanted kids interactions with police to have a positive theme and this is one way.

I asked Thom Lauzon to work with Jason Fleury to reactivate the Juvenile Officers Association non-profit. They did and it has been run through them since. I would organize the coin drop, wrapping of the gifts and work with the Barre Partnership to collect donations through Donor Box.

The last couple years we have been able to raise over $10,000 annually. Every gift is a positive reinforcement of the idea that police are here to be a good for our community. In these last few years our police in the U.S. have been under attack and I am grateful to be part of this one way to counteract that narrative.

I will continue to be involved in this program is it is near and dear to my heart.