09/09/2024
I’m sure some of you have already heard, but Saturday night was the last event for the Junior Police. It’s taken me this long to come up with something to say.
I moved out of state after leaving CCPD, and it just became too much to try to keep it going and planning training, etc from across the country. I’m very proud of what we have accomplished and if you ask what those accomplishments are, just talk to some of our members and you’ll see what a fine bunch of kids and young adults we have. We can’t take all of the credit for what great kids they are (parents may have had some impact) but I’m just as proud anyway.
Some of our “Service” events consisted of canned food drives, street clean-up, helping local businesses, building and painting picnic tables at the park, delivering Christmas baskets to the elderly, entertaining the elderly at nursing homes, etc. and we never had to worry about the kids doing something that would embarrass us, because they were such good kids. We also did “Fun” events, like Movie Night, Water Wars (thank you Bill Ringel), Rollerskating, Fishing, participating in parades and the fall festival, Mini Golf, and many more. “Reward” events were invitation only events for those that participated in the “Service” events. These consisted of Kartville, Peoria Chiefs or St Louis Cardinals games, annual Christmas party , pizza and bowling, and others. We have also given out three scholarships to our members and will still maintain this program until the end of the 2025 school year, where we anticipate providing two additional scholarships.
We started the Junior Police in 2017 and couldn’t have gotten anything off the ground without the help of many people. I want to thank the officers that helped especially at the beginning, I’m not going to name them because I may forget someone, but they know who they are. Also I want to thank the people that are currently on the board and those that have served over the years… I couldn’t have any of it without you. I also want to thank the Village, who always supported us with donations and anything else that we ever asked for. Finally I’d like to thank the citizens for your support at Food Drives and our donation boxes that were at local businesses, and most importantly, the parents of the kids that became regulars and helped the organization thrive. We have had over 220 kids come to at least one meeting, and most came many more times than that.
I am truly sorry to put this part of my life behind me. I will miss seeing these kids grow up and being able to see their smiles and hear their laughter when we all got together for an event. Thanks to all for the memories.
Here’s some pics from our goodbye event.
