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By Tom Kennedy
$1 Per Payroll for 1 Year Helps 1 Needy Child at Christmas and Raises HPD's Image and Morale for an Even Longer Period
Twas the Christmas season of 1984 when HPD officers arrested a father from
the East End on charges of shoplifting some children' underwear.
On the way to jail the father explained that he just wanted his young kids
to have some underwear before Christmas. The officers concluded he was jobless
and down on his luck enough that it was highly unlikely Santa Claus would show
up at his modest home.
1,500+ Blue Santas
They did a background check, told his wife he was in jail and took up a collection
from their fellow officers to provide food, some toys and - yes -
some new underwear for the young family.
The spirit of giving enveloped the guys involved. They went to 61 Riesner and
collected enough money to provide similar help for 12 more families.
Thus, the HPD Blue Santa program was born.
Today, there are more than 1,500 Houston police officers that fit the definition
of Blue Santa. The number is growing.
The Blue Santa network stretches to the far reaches of every poor neighborhood
and police beat in Space City.
The program simply brings out the best of those individuals who feel called
to become a police officer.
"The most rewarding part of the program is being able to help the kids
and being able to give them gifts," Sgt. Mark Newcomb of Eastside Patrol.
"These are kids not normally getting gifts. You find them on your own through
referrals, accident scenes and calls for service - like on the scene of
a shooting, a stabbing or a family disturbance."
Newcomb is one of a number of officers who are very active in the program. He
has experiences going back the better part of 10 years.
He remembers the husband jailed before Christmas for beating his wife. "We
knew they (the kids) weren't going to have much for Christmas. We ended
up adopting them."
During another year, a live-in boyfriend shot the mother of four children, aged
1 to 5. "They weren't getting anything," the sergeant recalled.
"It was two days before Christmas. We had to really scramble."
More well-to-do kids learn about Blue Santa from a different perspective -
the giving perspective.
Newcomb has three stepchildren - boys 16 and 14 and a girl 10. "We
get out on Christmas Eve and deliver the presents," he said. "It'
really an experience for them because they get to see how fortunate they are
and that some kids just don't have anything."
Payroll Deductions
Officer Freddie Joe Pyland, a community service officer at Southeast, has been
the primary overseer of the Blue Santa program since 1997, taking the baton
from Alan Watson, who had been in charge for about 10 years.
Pyland and the Blue Santa Board of Directors have kept the program' formula
simple and direct.
"We take in $100,000 a year through officers' donations," Pyland
explained. "This comes primarily through payroll deductions and some from
the Combined Municipal Campaign.
"Over the year if an officer gives $1 per paycheck he or she is able to
adopt one child. This means if you give $30 a paycheck you can adopt 30 kids
if you want to.
"There are 264 officers who give at least $5 per check, which means they
can sponsor at least five children this season."
These numbers reflect the fact that the program has quadrupled in the last five
or six years.
"This means we are the most successful of the police-type charities in
Houston," Pyland said. "We took in more money than the other (police
charity) groups totaled and they had to rely on the Combined Municipal Campaign."
Business and community support has steamrolled over the last few years. Radio
Station KIKK will conduct its sixth annual Blue Santa Bike Drop from the parking
lot of Gallery Furniture, Interstate 45 North between Tidwell/Parker. Radio
personalities are suspended 400 feet in the air by a crane and are lowered each
time a bike is contributed.
"As the public responds by buying brand new bikes," Pyland said, "they
(the personalities) get lower and lower (toward the ground). We ended up with
500 bikes last year just from this program."
The Spirit of Giving
This year' event will take place Friday, Dec. 6. Later in the day, Idresco
will sponsor the Party on the Plaza downtown where the donation of a toy or
cash gets you in the door. Everything collected benefits Blue Santa.
Another benefit involves country and western singer Pat Green, who is scheduled
to perform at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands in October/November.
Numerous other Blue Santa fundraises spawn the spirit of giving long before
the month of December rolls around. Pyland said Blue Santa representatives speak
"at a dozen or so lunches or visit a dozen Christmas parties."
He said, "You come to the party with a brand new gift for Blue Santa. We
did a dozen of those last year."
Between now and the first week in December Blue Santa will host its annual Christmas
party for the Houston Head Start program and take Blue Santa representatives
to two or three low-income apartment complexes to pass out gifts.
The Houston Airline Managers Association sponsors a luncheon during which a
mystery Blue Santa appears and those present try to guess who he really is.
One year the Houston Chronicle columnist Ken Hoffman was hiding behind the beard.
The guessing-game program is designed to raise funds.
Officer Martha Bailey, another community service officer at Southeast and a
Blue Santa board member, said Oceaneering International Inc., located on FM
529, is a big bike sponsor.
"They donated 100 bikes last year," Bailey said. "They came up
with the money for these bikes through bake sales and raffles. This year they're
sponsoring us once again. They've already started with their fundraising
and raised $400 during one bake sale."
Each bike comes with a bike helmet, of course.
Over-stuffed Toy Rooms
Pyland and Bailey said that collecting toys for the Blue Santa program is a
year-round effort made easier by the fact that the Southeast Command Station
has plenty of room space for storage. You might say the primary toy storage
area on the second level has been called HPD' own version of Toys 'R'
Us.
Besides the bike-accumulation method, Blue Santa draws on a small but effective
network of toy suppliers. "Whenever a sale is going on they call us,"
Bailey explained. "Kay Beet Toys, Discovery stores, the Limited, Toys R
Us - there are so many stores where we shop. They are happy to call us.
Usually we take them all because we can use them all.
"The purchasing is year-round. We start as soon as Christmas is over because
that' when all the sales are. By the end of November, we start making
the assortments."
The assortments are something else.
Like Bailey, Pyland is especially pleased with the overcrowded conditions in
the second floor toy room. Everywhere you look you see board games, including
dozens of different kinds of Monopoly games, action figures, footballs, basketballs,
Hot Wheels, radios and remote- and radio-controlled vehicles.
What exactly is a Blue Santa "assortment?"
For, say, a 10-year-old boy, it generally might consist of eight items: An AM-FM
portable radio, a Spider-Man Police Officer Action Hero, a bird-hunting video
game (no batteries required), a basketball, NASCAR Hot Wheels, a Titanic model,
a Pokemon Monopoly game and a radio-controlled Hot Rod with "no strings
attached."
Pyland explained that such an assortment might have price tags totaling $75
to $100. Yet, Blue Santa only pays $30 to $40 for it when the special sale prices
are factored in, a better-than-expected return on a $1-per-paycheck deduction
needed to "adopt" one child.
He said last year Blue Santa put presents under the tree for 6,000 Houston kids;
this year the number will approach 10,000. Many times the officers also include
food and clothing they purchase "on their own" for the children and
families they adopt.
Bailey, who is in charge of "toys for females," said many toy recipients
come from poor ethnic groups. "We do try to pick baby dolls that fit the
ethnicity of that particular child," she said. "We also try to be
sensitive to the needs of wheelchair-bound or the hearing impaired. We try to
go out there and find toys that will be helpful and educational to that type
of child.
"We get Barbie dolls with wheelchairs and crutches, which are sensitive
to the children who are in wheelchairs because they won't feel they're
different."
Santa' Accountability
Over the years some officers haven't fully understood how the program works
and there always seems to be at least a few who don't realize they can't
come in at the last minute and get "free toys." You must be in the
payroll deduction plan or be prepared to ante up $40.
Of course, many officers contribute to the program and allow their contributions
to be used unconditionally, Pyland explained. "Some just throw the money
into the system and never use their credit. That' how we're able
to supplement that $40 package and go over that amount."
Each Blue Santa must designate the gender and age of his or her adoption and
is expected to wrap up the gifts and deliver them by Christmas. Most of them
are delivered on Christmas Eve in the poorer neighborhoods. "We're
not in Kingwood recruiting kids," Pyland said. "These toys are going
to go where they should go."
By November Blue Santa helpers begin putting together the assortments and sorting
them out according to gender and age groupings.
"Officers may start picking up their toys on Nov. 18," Bailey said.
"If they come during that week of Nov. 18, we let them pick out their own
toys. However, if they do it in month of December they will get the pre-packaged
assortments."
There are very, very few exceptions to the officer-intensive adoption plan,
although families not affiliated with any police officer sometimes call Blue
Santa asking for help. Bailey said such callers are never flatly turned down,
nor or they promised anything.
"We take the name and number down," she explained. "In the event
an officer was allotted to sponsor 10 kids and only has five, we will sponsor
five other children from the call-in list.
"We have to stress to them that this is not something we are promising
will come through.
"Parents have to really be in need to be calling. My heart breaks when
I get a call from a father. It takes a whole lot more for a father to call me
and ask for help for his family. It' a lot harder for him as far as pride
for him to ask for a lending hand.
"I'd say out of all the calls I get, two or three a year come from
fathers."
Bicycle 'Study'
Blue Santa helpers interview parents about the needs of the children whom officers
initially deem to be possible bicycle recipients. They make sure there is a
genuine need and that the child will get some positive use out of having a new
bike.
Every $5-per-paycheck contributor is entitled to one bike. Pyland said he keeps
detailed records of bike recipients to ensure there are no duplications.
The annual "Bike Build" will take place beginning the Wednesday morning
of Dec. 4 at the Southeast Command Station, headed by Officers Jack Hanagrif
and John Eixman.
Last year, arranged in the style of a Henry Ford factory assembly line, the
bike builders put together 400 bikes in four hours. Altogether, Christmas 2001
saw Blue Santa distribute 700 bikes. This year' goal is 1,000.
Pyland said, "Some donated bikes are already built and some others we leave
in the boxes because they are easier to load in a trailer and haul to other
law enforcement agencies who build them on the spot.
"Throughout the month of December we will store them in two 18-wheelers
parked out back."
He explained that Blue Santa helps 30 to 35 other police agencies, such as Missouri
City, Seabrook, Pasadena, Conroe, Baytown. Colorado and Gonzalez counties, Galveston,
La Marque, Webster, Alvin, Sugar Land, Bryan and even the Harris County Sheriff
and many constables.
When gifts like these are delivered by Blue Santas in uniform, many negative
perceptions of law enforcement officers - especially Houston police officers
- move in a more positive direction.
Rick Trejo grew up on the east side, became a Houston police officer and is
now head of Community Services in the Magnolia Park Substation on Sherman. Trejo
said, "This is another positive program that knocks down the (negative)
walls and builds up the image of police officers.
"Most of the parents are very thankful when we take the toys by. I like
to visit with them when I go out there and get to know the kids."
Mark Newcomb, who works in the same substation, said he usually does a follow-up
a month or so after Christmas but "I never really have gone by much after
that. Why? I don't know. I guess I don't want them to think I'm
constantly checking up on them.
"I don't want them to feel ashamed in any way or that I'm pressuring
them to see if they use their toys, or whatever."
Each Blue Santa probably handles each situation and each "adopted"
child differently. But Newcomb drove home the right point when he said:
"I know it' something the kids never forget. They see the police
in a different light. Blue Santa casts a real positive light on police officers."
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