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Trevor Callahan can’t forget the 10-year-old he took shopping last year.
The Adams County sheriff’s deputy has run into the boy several times since and each time the Decatur youth brings up the Lego set he picked out with Callahan at the county’s Cops for Kids program.
The boy’s mother died not long before Christmas, and he bounced from home to home before landing in an aunt’s care.
If Cops for Kids hadn’t helped out last year, he would not have had any Christmas presents at all, the aunt told police.
Callahan isn’t sure whether it’s how grateful for the gifts the boy is, even months later, or how he has managed to keep a positive outlook in the face of a load of trauma, but the child left an impression on the sheriff’s deputy.
“He was just one of those kids that really touched my heart,” Callahan said.
So when applications for this year’s Cops for Kids came out, Callahan stopped by the boy’s house and dropped off a copy, hoping the two can repeat their shopping trip.
Cops for Kids raises money for children whose families can’t afford to buy Christmas presents. The children usually get a new coat and winter clothes as well as a few toys. But it also gives police officers, who often see poor and desperate children in their work, a way to feel like they’re influencing the lives of the families they meet, said Sgt. Jack Woodruff, president of the Fort Wayne Fraternal Order of Police union.
In many counties, the local FOP lodge organizes the event and its sponsors.
Most organizers across northeast Indiana and northwest Ohio said they have seen a greater demand for the program as high unemployment rates and economic pressures pinch families. Some say they’ve also watched donations slide for many of the same reasons.
“The phone’s been ringing off the hook about two weeks earlier than it normally has,” said Huntington police Officer Terry Stoffel, who organizes Huntington County’s Cops for Kids.
Callahan said the tough economy makes the program even more important. It takes young, at-risk children who are more likely to have run-ins with the law as they get older and gives them a positive experience with a police officer, he said.
“A lot of times this is the first contact with police these kids have,” he said. “Hopefully, that’ll carry over.”
