December 18, 2020
By: Dwayne Page
Children at the Smithville Head Start Center were treated to bags of gifts Friday thanks to the Smithville Police Department’s “Cops4Kids” program.
In what has become an annual event, Police Chief Mark Collins and members of the department made sure each child had a bag of toys for Christmas but due to COVID-19 there was no formal program featuring Santa, Christmas carols, nor a local minister sharing the Christmas story with the kids. All 74 Head Start students were served including the 40 on campus and the remaining 34 off site.
Chief Collins said the effort is made possible due to generous donations of the community and the help of Cash Express who conducted a toy collection drive.
“We always look forward to this although we were not able to interact with the children this year due to the pandemic. Cash Express sets up collection boxes across the community to accept donations of toys. We also have people who bring toys or cash directly to the police department and if we don’t have enough toys donated then we take that cash and go to Walmart and buy gifts for the kids. I especially want to thank my fellow officers along with records clerk Beth Adcock, and the staff here at the Head Start Center who work to make this come together. Hopefully next year things will get back to normal and we can once again put on a complete Christmas program for the children,” said Chief Collins.