Santa Cops Santa Cops Marks 30 Years of Giving Gifts to Broomfield's Kids in Need

By Kristen Beckman

Santa’s elves, with the help of the Broomfield Police Department, have been busy for the past month collecting and wrapping gifts for children who might not otherwise have a gift under the Christmas tree this year.

The Santa Cops program began three decades ago when Tom Deland, then the newly appointed Broomfield Police Chief in 1991, recognized that a lot of kids in Broomfield weren’t going to have any kind of Christmas because of challenges their families were facing. Broomfield was smaller then and didn’t have its own social services department to help struggling residents, he said. The police department and city employees often stepped in to fill the gaps. Deland, along with Broomfield’s former mayor Walt Spader and several private donors including the Spallone family, teamed up to launch the Christmas toy program.

Sgt. Rhett Newbold, who leads the program for the Broomfield Police Department, said as police officers go about their work in the community and come in contact with families who need help, they can nominate them to receive a gift through the program. School resource officers, school officials and members of the city’s Health and Human Services Department also frequently nominate recipients. Officers purchase and wrap toys and then invite nominated families to come to the police station to pick up their gifts in time for Christmas.

“That first year, we probably provided toys to about 30 or 35 kids,” said Deland. “But as the city grew over the next 30 years, the program just expanded and expanded.” Deland said about 275 gifts were distributed last year to children up to age 16, and at least as many kids are expected to be nominated this year. It’s not always toys that are gifted to recipients, said Deland. Many kids request and receive necessities like warm coats, boots, and socks.

Early on, the program ran in partnership with an annual toy drive hosted by radio station KYGO, but as the needs of Broomfield grew, the police department decided to take the program entirely in-house so it could better meet the needs of Broomfield kids. About 15 years ago, the Broomfield Rotary Club got involved in the effort by providing a substantial amount of funding for gifts each year.

Those who want to help can drop off a new, unopened toy at the police station or detention center, make a monetary donation at the police department, or mail a check to Broomfield Rotary, P.O. Box 332, Broomfield, Colorado 80038. All funds collected for Santa Cops go directly to purchasing gifts for kids in need.

Newbold said Santa Cops is both a great community relations effort and a morale booster for officers. “The whole main hallway inside the police department is just lined with wall-to-wall gifts,” said Newbold. “A lot of us have kids too, and we can’t imagine the thought of kids not having something for Christmas.“

“It’s been a great program for 30 years,” said Deland. “It’s a real homegrown effort. The police department really embraced it from day one and I’m glad that it is still going on this long after we started.”