Police Call Santa in to Help Deliver Christmas to Two Neighborhoods

Organizing 150 families to line up for a shopping trip with a law enforcement officer can get a bit hairy when Santa sneaks up behind the guy trying to give out directions.

As Pastor Don Sturiano was trying to quiet the a long line of excited children to give them instructions outside of the Toys R' Us Thursday night, a sudden chorus of "Santa!" went up from the line. Sure enough Santa was striding across the parking lot to greet the children and to add just a little more excitement to the evening.

Inside a line of law enforcement officers were waiting to take the kids on a Christmas shopping trip through the store.The officers take the children through the store and help them spend their gift cards.

Sturiano has been organizing this shopping trip for four years now with a mission of giving kids in need a little bit of Christmas and getting the children to "plant a positive seed" with the children that police officers are not their enemies. The event is called honor the badge. And apparently the officers look forward to it as much as the children do.

Sturiano, who is a church pastor as well as the police department chaplain, said officers start asking about the event in early November and that he is never short on volunteers, eventhough the event has grown.

In past years Sturiano limited the Honor the Badge event to the children of the Washington Park neighborhood. This year he expanded it to include the area around 9th Street West where his church is located. 

Women in the community let the families know about the date and time of the event and pass out fliers to make sure the children don't miss it.

The small congregation at Kingdom Life Christian Church donated nearly $4,000 to make sure that there were enough $25 gift cards for every officer to take the children shopping. Sturianos also gets donations from several businesses that help to pay for the Christmas presents.

The church invited 150 children, but when about a dozen extra showed up, the officers made sure no one was turned away.

Sturiano came prepared with extra gift cards and Chief Michael Radzilowski said that he and the mayor would pay for any extra children if they ran out of gift cards. But every year it seems like there are just enough cards for every child who shows up.