ABERDEEN – After a hiatus that was caused by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, a police-funded community outreach effort has returned during the 2021 holiday season to assist Aberdeen Township families in need.
Ron Osadacz Jr., president of the Aberdeen Township Police Benevolent Association, started the community outreach effort in 2019. The program’s mission is to provide gifts for families that struggling financially during the holiday season.
This year, to identify families in need, Osadacz posted an announcement about the outreach effort on Facebook. Residents soon began contacting PBA officials to provide the names of families that could use some assistance at this time of the year.
“We put a notification out to the community via our Facebook page. The community assisted us greatly in nominating friends or family members who they knew needed help. A few individuals reached us directly as well,” Osadacz said.
This year’s outreach effort provided Target gift cards to individuals who used the gift cards to help purchase presents. To fund the purchase of the gift cards, Aberdeen Township police officers made donations and the effort netted about $3,000.
Osadacz said the generosity of the officers is what made the effort successful.
“All of our officers had some level of involvement, from a donation out of their own pocket or assisting in locating families in need.
“It’s an idea that needs a lot of hands to help lift. I’m happy to say I have a union full of men and women who jump to help the community.
“In total, close to $3,000 was raised out of our officers’ own pockets to disperse. It equaled around $200 per child on a preloaded gift card,” he said.
To respect privacy, the selected families were contacted on an individual basis. At different times and dates, the families visited police headquarters to pick up their gift cards in private.
In total, 11 children ranging in age from 6 months to 16 years received a gift card.
“There are kids who are less fortunate. We are picking people who are not used to getting new things or having the opportunity to go to Target and saying, ‘Whatever you want, pick out.’ We are not doing it for publicity. … It was just to give back to these families,” Osadacz said.
The PBA president said anyone who is interested in making a donation toward future outreach efforts is welcome to do so.
“We will always accept donations. A lot of our funds go directly back to the community in one way, shape or form,” he said.
Osadacz said positive community feedback has inspired the PBA members to want to continue the outreach effort on an annual basis.
He said the efforts in 2019 and 2021 “have had a huge impact on the people we assisted and on our membership as a whole. We feel extremely fortunate to be able to give back and help those who just fell on temporary hard times.”
For more information, contact Ron Osadacz at [email protected] or visit https://www.aberdeenpba163.com/home