| Event: | Operation Blue Santa | ||
| Date: | 15th December 2007 | ||
| Location: | Austin, Texas | ||
| Description: |
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| This year, December 15th was delivery day for the Austin Police Department’s Blue Santa program, and LSMVPA was once again there to help. Blue Santa is a program where toys and frozen turkeys are donated to the Department by businesses and citizens in Austin. APD then oversees the distribution of these to provide a Christmas for thousands of our less fortunate families. Similar programs are conducted by other agencies all over the country. |
Early Saturday morning Jeff L and Rory C took Jeff’s M35A2 to one of the distribution points in Northeast Austin, where they met with a couple of Rory’s team members from work. The heavy rains of the last couple of days had threatened to disrupt the deliveries, but miraculously cleared off in the hour before we started. The day turned quite cold, but sunny. The deuce was quickly loaded to capacity with boxes, then driven to many homes in several neighbourhoods and the deliveries were made. Once those deliveries were complete we returned to the distribution point for a reload, only to find that the entire tractor-trailer had already been emptied due to the large number of volunteers. There were however a deuceload of boxes that were undeliverable due to bad addresses or no one being home to accept them, so we loaded them up and took them down to the Blue Santa warehouse in south Austin. With the mission complete, everyone headed home. Our group’s efforts were just a part of what went on all over the city. Deliveries are made by just about every APD officer who is not on duty, firemen, business groups, military personnel, and hundreds of private citizens, most of whom bring their own personal vehicles. Quite a showing. |
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| At the distribution point | The Deuce loaded with presents | Following one of the police cars to deliver toys | ||
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| Jim sorting the boxes | Jeff, Rory S, Rina and Jim delivering | Jim, Rory C, Jeff, Rina, Rory S, and Cmdr H. | ||