PORTSMOUTH — “People don’t think there’s a need in Portsmouth, but look around you,” says Police Officer Scott Sullivan, pointing to the wide variety of items filling the police station’s break room Tuesday afternoon.
Lava lamps, pajamas, rubber dinosaurs, piles of gift cards, a Casio keyboard, sweatshirts, snow boots, sporting equipment and many more items are stacked on a table and along the walls. They’re all gifts going to needy families as part of the Police Department’s annual Holiday Drive, spearheaded by Officer Sullivan, aka “Sully.”
And, he says, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
“This isn’t even close to all of it. We’ve already given stuff away,” says Officer Sullivan, who’s run the annual drive for the past three years after a request by Deputy Chief Brian Peters.
“It was usually guys just throwing money into a hat and asking the union for a few bucks,” says Officer Sullivan, whose efforts have greatly increased donations from not only union members and department staff, but from the general public and local businesses.
“This year I think we’ve done over $5,000 from us and that’s not including everything else we’ve gotten. A lot of this is what we’ve bought,” he says.
“I think it’s great,” adds Detective Sgt. Michael Arnold, president of the police union. “I think we’ve come a long way from three years ago. I think the first year was $500.”
Nicole Pascoe, a social worker in the school district, is the “actual angel behind all of this,” says Officer Sullivan. She identifies which local families are in need of some help during the holidays and provides the police with a gift wish list.
While at least 90 percent of the donations and gifts are going to Portsmouth residents, police aren’t saying “no” to anyone, he says.
“Some people need a helping hand — just a little boost. Some people need a little more,” he says. “Some of these people may be a two-income family and they can pay off their bills, but there’s nothing left for the extras. So we may buy their groceries and gas for a week, so now they can go out and buy their own clothes or whatever they want to do for the kids.”
While the holiday drive has been rewarding for police, it’s important to them that they stay in the background.
Police received a wish list from local families and filled their orders as best they could. “We try to help everybody,” Officer Sullivan says.
While some of the gifts were to be delivered to the schools, other families don’t know the gifts are coming. “On Christmas Eve, some of the guys will deliver this stuff late at night and it will be on the porch,” he says.
All-consuming
The holiday drive has become a second job for “Sully.” Before working one of his typical midnight shifts — 7 p.m. Tuesday to 7 a.m. Wednesday — he was on gift duty.
“I came in here this morning and organized the list,” says Officer Sullivan, who had gotten only three hours of sleep the previous night after having been up 40 hours straight. “On Facebook I get requests or responses to help, so you have to organize all that.”
Then he attended a police luncheon in North Dartmouth before hitting the nearby stores to buy more gifts. After that came a special assignment to help a struggling young lady in Portsmouth. “She’s just trying to make sure her kids are fed,” says Officer Sullivan, who called Home Depot, where his wife works, after learning the woman had no Christmas tree.
“It’s the third (tree) they’ve given us. I drove down to Home Depot, picked up a tree stand and lights. Someone had donated some ornaments, and I dropped them off along with some coats. Then I shopped for all their gifts,” he says.
If he was lucky, he caught an hour or two of sleep before his 12-hour shift.
Delivering gifts to needy families can be an emotional experience for some officers.
“I have one guy with a very tough exterior and I asked if he would drop off some of the gifts and he said, ‘I can’t, because I’ll lose it around the kids and no one can see that,’” he recalls. “I don’t think I’ve cried since my father passed away and that’s 15 years ago, but I’ve come pretty darn close.”
Like the time police learned of a little boy named William who had special needs. William asked for a table for his classroom.
“We said, ‘A table?’ It was like a $200 table and we had to get it from a school supply store. We brought it in and it’s very heavy. We learned that he can’t sit at a normal table in class. We dropped it off and the mom starts crying. We said, ‘It’s OK mom, it’s a table.’ She said, ‘You didn’t give my son a table; you gave him his independence, because he can now sit with his classmates.’ The school bought the chairs and now he has his own place to sit.”
‘We try to help everybody’
Police try to keep in mind other folks who are often neglected during the holiday season. They also deliver to the local group home for girls ages 14 to 17 that’s run by the state Department of Children, Youth and Families. While it’s easy to get sponsors for little kids, troubled teenagers are a harder sell, he says.
“So we’ve got a gift for each of them. And we’ll deliver those, so they can have a good interaction with us,” he says.
Police were recently told about two local adults with mental disabilities who might want gifts. “They’re wards of the state. Nobody thinks of them. One of them asked for bongos. I’m still trying to find those,” says Officer Sullivan.
Sometimes, they even find a gift for a child to give to his or her parents. “One of the kids asked for a saw for his daddy. So I went to Home Depot and they stepped up again. Now we make sure mom and dad get something, whether it’s a gift card, or a blanket or a sweatshirt. We try to help everybody that we can.”
Would like to expand
Although the holiday drive has already grown by leaps and bounds, Officer Sullivan says police would like to eventually make it a year-round program, as there are always families in need.
“If there’s someone in Portsmouth who needs help, let us know because they’re usually not going to contact us,” he says.
People with either gift requests or donations can go to the “PPD Holiday Drive” Facebook page, call police at 683-0300 or stop by the station and ask for him. It’s never too late to donate, he says, and all cash donations are accounted for.
“It’s a great program because we see a difference and people get to see us in a better light,” says Officer Sullivan. “We look at it this way: We’re not helping people, they’re helping us. We all took the job to help people and to protect and serve. This is the serve part that’s pretty fun.”
The gift of prayer
A little girl has become a motivating force behind the annual Holiday Drive.
Hannah Wertens is an 11-year-old Portsmouth girl whose ongoing battle against leukemia is well-known locally.
“She had leukemia at 4 and she had it again last year,” says Officer Sullivan.
Police learned the family was not going to request any gifts last year, so Officer Sullivan placed a call to Hannah’s mother. “Santa wanted me to give you a call,” he told her.
All Hannah wanted, he ,learned was a Selena Gomez poster. “We knew they were struggling, so some people in town donated a brand-new computer for them. We were able to get 50 or 60 gifts over there to make their Christmas special.”
This year he called the family again. “The mom said, ‘It’s greedy for me to even ask you for anything because you guys gave us so much before and I don’t want other people to go without,’” says Officer Sullivan. “She said the only thing her daughter was asking for was for people to pray for her.”
So Officer Sullivan went on Facebook and made a short video requesting a “share-a-prayer” for Hannah to have a healthy recovery.
“I said I was hoping that 500 people would look at it and say a prayer. In seven or eight days, we’ve had 22,000, 23,000 people look at it from all over including the United Arab Emirates, Canada. I just had a Chicago police officer write me today.”
The video was a key reason why the holiday drive has been such a success this year, he says.
“It really helped drive all this. It’s not just about Hannah; it’s about everyone.”
Anyone who would like to share a greeting with Hannah can do so by sending a card to the Portsmouth Police Department c/o Hannah, 2270 East Main Road, Portsmouth, RI 02871.