Cops and Kids Christmas Capers

Kate Petrignani (pictured) and Diane Bower (not pictured) own and run the fine art gallery "Just Around The Corner" on Bank Street, and have partnered up with the Easton Police Department to create the "Cops and Kids Christmas Capers" program. Diane told me about it: 

"Seven years ago I noticed the neighborhood children were afraid of the police officers, probably because many of them carted their parents off to jail. So, I went to the police chief and suggested a program where the officers would appear fully uniformed, off duty but fully uniformed, on Peace candle Lighting Night, which is the day after Thanksgiving, and we would do a craft project with the kids and they would be interacting with the officers fully uniformed. We did that the first year and it was a pretty big success; we had about a hundred kids and we were really happy. The next year we had about 150 kids and the next year we had about 650 kids. I am deeply indebted to the officers who donate their time because they come off a twelve hour shift to come here at four o'clock in the afternoon to set up and get ready to go and then make pinecone bird feeders with the kids. There's so many kids now that we couldn't afford to buy the materials--it was getting really outrageous. We used to make Christmas ornaments. Now we get big pinecones and birdseed and the kids love it and the officers love it and it's a great relationship-building program. We need the kids to not be afraid of the police department." 

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