Connersville FOP Memorial Lodge #74

12/21/2025

“Officer Counceller’s Christmas Crusade”

Yesterday, we conducted our 2025 installment of Officer Counceller’s Christmas Crusade and it was our BIGGEST YEAR EVER! Through the love and generous giving from our community, we were able to provide Christmas for 85 kids, which is our highest total to date! Was it a lot of work? Yes! Was it absolutely worth it? 💯 YES!

These kiddo’s and their families arrived and were given a hot meal, treats, board games, a NEW COAT, a visit from the Jolly One himself (Santa), and got to run around and hang out with our officers and volunteers. They were then transported by a parade of police cars with lights and sirens all the way to Walmart to pick out what they wanted for Christmas this year. The smiles were so many and the spirit of Christmas was overwhelming!

There are so many people and organizations to thank, but it starts with those who donate to this event each year. No matter how much, big or small, EVERY DONATION MATTERS and allows this event to be so successful and long lasting! We would also like to thank the following:

Whitewater QuickPix for catering the event and DONATING every bit of the food that was catered for our event. It was delicious and the kids loved it! Additionally, the left overs were not thrown away or discarded, they were delivered to local homeless shelters and recovery homes, to give those who are in need in our community a hot meal, as well.

30th Street Shell for graciously donating so many 2-liters and drinks for the event, which were also distributed with the left over food.

Connersville Parks & Recreation for being so flexible in accommodating our last minute need for a venue change, due to circumstances out of our control. Director Steele was fantastic in working with us and providing the Miller Building gymnasium and the decorations there to hold this event.

Walmart Connersville for being such a fantastic partner each year. They dedicate extra staff for our event and make us a priority and our continued partnership with them is one that we are so thankful for!

Jennifer Gabbard Horning for partnering with us this year and providing over 65 coats for our kids this year. Also, those of you who stepped up to meet the need for the rest of the needed coats! Thanks to all of you, each child received a new coat this year!

Roberta Parks and Mary Blakley for decorating and making the Miller Building look fantastic for this event! Also, all the work Mary put in helping get ready for yesterday!

Lastly, to every volunteer, officer, friend, family member, who showed up to help with decorating, serving food, cleaning up, carrying bags of presents, and the list goes on. Your hard work and generosity is so vital to the success of this program. There were officers from the following departments present this year:

Connersville Police Department, IN
Fayette County Sheriff’s Office- Indiana
Fayette County Probation Department
Reid Health Police Department

Though Jennifer Weston Counceller was unable to make it this year, due to her recovering from a procedure (where we all agreed she needed to be), she was in constant communication with me and has helped in every way she can for the last couple of months leading into this event. However, Taylor Cierra and Kenzie Lynn were present this year, as in all the years before, to represent the Counceller family and we loved having them there! Their presence keeps the spirit of Jeff alive and is a constant reminder of how important this program is to our community and why we changed the name to honor Jeff’s memory, since Jeff dedicated so much of his time and energy to this program when he was with us. I’m sure he is so proud of the way his family and fellow officers have continued in this effort. ❤️

Again, we cannot say THANK YOU enough to everyone who understands the importance of this event and continues to make it such a success.

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and are already looking forward to next year and doing this all over again! 🎄🎅🏼🎁

P.S. - If you have pictures from yesterday, please message them to me so I can add them to this post.

12/18/2025

‼️ HELP NEEDED ‼️

This year we partnered with Jennifer Gabbard Horning to try and provide new coats for all the kids in our program and she was able to provide us with 66 coats. There are 82 kids in this years program and we are a few coats short. This is due to some of our kiddo’s wearing adult size coats or smaller coats that were out of stock.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?!?! If you would like to go to Walmart or any other store and purchase any of the needed coats below, or perhaps you have an unused coat in one of these sizes, please just comment which size you can provide and we will arrange for pickup (in Fayette County) tomorrow or they can be dropped off at the Connersville Police Department tomorrow between 8a-4p.

Our crusade will take place Saturday morning, so we would need to collect coats by Friday evening/Saturday morning at the latest!

Thank you to all those who have donated and helped and those who will step up and help in this moment, as well! You all make it possible for these kids to receive Christmas joy and spend time with the Law Enforcement Officers from this community. 🎁🎄

11/25/2025

We have a significant number of letters returned to sender this year from our mailing list that we have. If you have moved, it is likely that the reminder letter we sent was returned to us.

However, if you’d like to still donate, you can bring donations to the Connersville Police Department or simply scan the QR code below to make your donation!

Thank you to everyone who donates to making this such a special day. 🎄🎅🏼

Greetings, everyone! We are gearing up for our annual “Officer Counceller’s Christmas Crusade” and we would LOVE if you would partner with us by making any monitary donation, big or small!

This program has helped us bring Christmas joy to thousands of children from our community over the last two decades and we are looking forward to serving more children this year, so every little bit helps!

You can simply scan the QR code below or make checks payable to:

“Officer Counceller’s Christmas Crusade” and mail it to this address or deliver it to the Connersville Police Department:

Connersville FOP Lodge 74
c/o Clint Brown
100 E 5th St
Connersville, IN 47331

We will be selecting kids this year in the following order:

1. Officer Nominations - these are children and families that officers have identified through their normal duties as children/families that would benefit from this program.

2. Elementary School Nominations - These are children and families that school staff have identified as children/families that would benefit from this program.

3. Applications (which can be filled out at CPD). This is not a guaranteed acceptance into the program, as we do have limited spots and time. We also want to make sure that we are assisting different families from year to year, so that we can meet new kids and develop positive and impactful repationships with new families each year.

If you are in a different program, we will not be accepting you into this program as to ensure that as many people that can be helped, are helped.

We look forward to another exciting year of Christmas fun and making new friends. We would also like to thank our continued supporters who are so very vital to the continued success of this program. It never has and never will go unnoticed!

11/13/2025

Greetings, everyone! We are gearing up for our annual “Officer Counceller’s Christmas Crusade” and we would LOVE if you would partner with us by making any monitary donation, big or small!

This program has helped us bring Christmas joy to thousands of children from our community over the last two decades and we are looking forward to serving more children this year, so every little bit helps!

You can simply scan the QR code below or make checks payable to:

“Officer Counceller’s Christmas Crusade” and mail it to this address or deliver it to the Connersville Police Department:

Connersville FOP Lodge 74
c/o Clint Brown
100 E 5th St
Connersville, IN 47331

We will be selecting kids this year in the following order:

1. Officer Nominations - these are children and families that officers have identified through their normal duties as children/families that would benefit from this program.

2. Elementary School Nominations - These are children and families that school staff have identified as children/families that would benefit from this program.

3. Applications (which can be filled out at CPD). This is not a guaranteed acceptance into the program, as we do have limited spots and time. We also want to make sure that we are assisting different families from year to year, so that we can meet new kids and develop positive and impactful repationships with new families each year.

If you are in a different program, we will not be accepting you into this program as to ensure that as many people that can be helped, are helped.

We look forward to another exciting year of Christmas fun and making new friends. We would also like to thank our continued supporters who are so very vital to the continued success of this program. It never has and never will go unnoticed!

12/21/2024

What a day!! This years installment of “Officer Counceller’s Christmas Crusade” was incredible! With the help of our partners and the donations of you, the community we serve, we were able to provide Christmas joy to 80 children in our community!

Kids were treated with a party with Santa and even a visit from that mean ol’ Grinch, who had his regular sized heart today and handed out candy canes to the kids. There was pizza, snacks, cookies, drinks, and most of all fun and laughter!

They were then transported in our police vehicles with the lights and sirens going and then they got to shop and pick out the gifts they wanted this year.

We would like to thank ALL OF YOU! We are blessed to have faithful givers to this program who allow us this great opportunity to spend time with the youth who need it in our community.

In addition, we would like to thank the following organizations/individuals who made this day possible:

Growing Branches for Christ Ministries who allow us to use their fellowship hall/facilities every year, free of charge.

Walmart Connersville for being gracious hosts who go above and beyond to accommodate this program every year, as well as, donating the snacks and drinks for this years party.

Little Caesars for donating a large portion of the pizza for today’s event.

Papermoon Designs for designing and making our brand new backdrop banner for families to enjoy while taking pictures.

Singl-Shot (Noah McCullum) for providing photography services and capturing some special moments during the event today.

Roberta Parks and Mary Burnette for the hours of decorating that went into setting up our party location.

Samantha Caldwell and Lyndsay Smiley for baking all of our cookies, fudge, and other goodies.

Tim Bentley and Mike Current for being our special visitors (Grinch and Santa) and adding that Christmas fun!

Lastly, to the officers and their families who donated their time, energy, and love to this event and these children. They made sure that not only did these kids “get stuff”, but that they made some friends in blue, that will hopefully last a lifetime.

Law Enforcement Agencies present today:

- Connersville Police Department, IN

- Reid Health Police Department

- Fayette County Probation Department

- Hagerstown Indiana Police

- Cambridge City Indiana Police Department

**Please feel free to share any pictures that were taken at the event today in the comments!