Looking for a niche, cops help seniors

PALMER — Donna Anthony said she started the Santa Cop program six years ago mainly because she felt police — at least in some sectors of the community — had an image problem.

People, she said, often think police officers are just out to arrest people and sternly enforce the law. The image didn’t contain any compassion or warmth, even though many officers are community-minded, helpful, generous people.

“I thought that needed to be changed,” she said.

So she went to her chief — Palmer Police Chief George Boatright — and pitched him the idea of having police collect and distribute gifts. The chief loved it. Still does.

But she quickly found that giving gifts to needy children was a niche already filled in the Valley. The Special Santa Program had been doing that for years. And doing it well.

“I didn’t want to duplicate anything,” Anthony said.

She said she decided Santa Cop would still take in toys but would just pass them along to the folks over at Special Santa. But that left Santa Cop without a niche of its own to fill.

Working as a cop in the Valley, though, she quickly realized there was another group of people who could really use some holiday cheer.

“I noticed that there were some seniors in need, especially around Christmas time,” Anthony said.

A lot of folks don’t quite realize how isolated and in need many of the Valley’s seniors are. So Santa Cop became a seniors outreach program, bringing gifts to the elderly who might not otherwise get any.

But, Anthony said, officers don’t just swing by and drop off presents. On Christmas morning officers come in on their off time. They bring their families and stay awhile at each house they visit. She said that’s the part that seems to make the most difference in seniors’ lives.

“It’s not even really the presents. They’re just happy someone is there,” she said.

And they love it when officers bring their families.

“They love seeing the kids,” Anthony said.

Anthony said she brought her nephew along one year. She said the moment the first senior opened the door the senior started crying. The same thing happened at the next house. She said her nephew wasn’t quite sure what to make of that.

“They’re happy that you’re there. You’re somebody to talk to,” Anthony recalls telling him.

And a lot of times officers come across seniors they can help in other ways. Alaska State Trooper Dugger Cook wrote in the Santa Cop newsletter of a senior who, when Cook and his family came to visit, got tied up in the leash of her excited dog and wound up falling and needing medical attention.

Anthony said that last year Palmer officer James Gipson didn’t get an answer at one door he knocked on. He came back at the end of his run and this time the woman answered.

“The first thing they noticed — it was so cold,” inside the woman’s home.

Gipson asked her why she hadn’t answered the door.

“It was just so cold, I couldn’t get out of bed,” Anthony said, paraphrasing the woman’s response.

She’d been in bed, covered in blankets. Anthony said Gipson made sure the woman’s landlord fixed her heat.

“If we didn’t go there she probably wouldn’t have gotten her heat fixed because no one was listening to her,” Anthony said.

In six years, she said, the program has grown. All of the law enforcement agencies participate: the Palmer, Wasilla and Houston police departments and the Alaska State Troopers. This year marks the first in which they’ve seen a need to form committees. They have, among other committees, a senior center committee, a team in charge of lining up manpower and another in charge of putting together transportation.

“It’s grown. It’s amazing,” Anthony said. “We just wanted to do something small for the community, but we found the needs were larger.”

She said the community has stepped up to help. The list of sponsors from last year’s program is long and includes the Matanuska Telephone Association, Alaska Job Corps, the Matanuska Valley Federal Credit Union, the Palmer Ambulance Bay, the Greater Palmer Chamber of Commerce and the Alaska Peace Officers Association. The Palmer Lion’s Club usually donates wrapping paper. The women inmates of Highland Mountain went on a shopping trip last year and scooped up $1,000 in presents for the seniors.

And, as it turns out, there aren’t quite enough uniformed lawmen and law-women to quite do the job. So they’ve roped in the fire departments as well. Anthony said the firefighters will show up in their turnout gear. She said she wants to make sure people making deliveries show up are wearing uniforms of some sort. That way the seniors aren’t as wary having strangers knocking on their doors.

Which, of course, means volunteers from the general public aren’t really allowed on that leg of the mission.

But they can still donate quilts, gloves, puzzles or anything else a senior might like at various spots around the Valley. Anyone looking to lend a hand is welcome to stop by at the Palmer Train Depot Dec. 19 for this year’s gift-wrapping party.

And when it’s all said and done, Anthony said, she plans to empty out the program’s bank account. She’s looking at the possibility of buying some kind of electricity or natural gas vouchers to help seniors with their living expenses. It’s really one of the few basic expenses she can think of that the program can help with.

“We can’t pay for their medicine,” she said. “We’re trying to specialize to what their needs are.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.