CARE FOR COPS
Nonprofit brings ‘gratitude’ packages to NYPD
The care packages were filled up, assembly-line style, with jelly beans, lip balm, bracelets, hand warmers, and personal thankyou notes, all for members of the NYPD.
About 50 volunteers from police department fraternal organizations gathered in an auditorium at NYPD headquarters in Downtown Manhattan on Wednesday morning to lend their hands to Operation Gratitude — a nonprofit that does outreach work for the military and first responders.
Operation Gratitude CEO Kevin Schmiegel said that with the volunteers’ help, by September he and his 33 employees hope to make more than 30,000 care packages, one for every NYPD member.
“The fact is our frontline responders are tired and fatigued,” he said. “And they have to continue the fight against COVID. We will not stop because they cannot stop.”
The group, which was founded in 2003, sends out more than 300,000 packages to military members overseas, and to first responders, each one with snacks, hygiene products, hygiene items and letters of support, according to its web site.
“The fact is American people want to show their support, more than ever,” Schmeigel said.
Schmiegel, a Marine Corps veteran, said Operation Gratitude does the work to help foster “community building” and showing “gratitude.”
“We do much more than care packages. It’s what goes into it,” he said. “For every item that goes into those care packages, think about the sense of purpose those volunteers have.”
“Americans all share a passion of service, whether they’re in uniform or not. What will unite our country and what will unite our communities: service, acts of gratitude and kindness, and making those meaningful connections. It happens at events like this.”
NYPD Sergeant Siobhan Murphy started her volunteer shift at 7 a.m., picking up Operation Gratitude employees from their hotel and shuttling them to One Police Plaza.
“It’s very overwhelming. Honestly, I’ve been on the job for almost 22 years. It’s just nice to see that people really care about what we are doing here,” she said. “I could cry at the drop of a hat. It’s just nice. Overall, it’s a sense of awe at everything that’s going on.”
The NYPD will start giving out the packages at precincts across the city starting Thursday.
The gesture comes as relations between the NYPD and the public have frayed after the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis cop sparked a national outrage inflamed by the police response to days of street protests over the summer.
Chief of Department Terrence Monahan said he hopes the packages will help build a bond between the public and the NYPD.
“It couldn’t be a better thing. This is something we all need, for us to come together and unify, we need to understand that we are all one,” he told the volunteers. “We can get past everything that happened in 2020.”
Deputy Inspector Mark Wachter echoed those thoughts.
“Ultimately what we are looking to do is bridge the gap to bring the community and police together,” he said. “It’s the human side of what we do. It’s the community and Operation Gratitude giving back and saying ‘we really appreciate what you do for us.’ ”
He added, “The ultimate goal is to deliver one of these packages to every single uniform and civilian member of the police department. ... It’s the motivation that our officers need. It’s the support they need.”