photo by: Lawrence Police Department/Contributed Photo

Officer Meghan Bardwell of the Lawrence Police Department, center, delivers Blue Santa gifts to Mason Schumock, right, and his mom, Shantele Bowlin, of Lawrence, in December 2020.

This year, the gifts that children received through the Lawrence Police Department’s Blue Santa program were surprises to the grownups, too.

The department’s annual charity benefit and toy drive, first organized in 2011, usually allows parents and guardians of Lawrence kids to shop at the Blue Santa toy store and select gifts. The toy store “elves” — volunteers — would then wrap the presents for officers to deliver to the family’s home.

But as the coronavirus pandemic surged into the latter months of the year, it became clear that the tradition was going to have to be modified a bit. There were new challenges, but the program was able to help a record number of families, according to Lawrence police.

Jana Ramsey, a civilian crime scene technician for LPD, is the secretary of Blue Santa. She explained how the organization managed to operate despite COVID-19.

Because of the pandemic concerns, the elves took care of the shopping. When parents applied for the program — which specifically aims to serve low-income families, unemployed grandparents who are caring for their grandchildren, and families that have experienced extended illness, according to Blue Santa’s website — they would also include some ideas of the types of gifts the children might enjoy, Ramsey said. Each child under 17 gets three gifts.

The elves handled gift wrapping as they normally do, and Lawrence police officer volunteers still delivered the gifts to the families. However, this year meant a lot of porch drop-offs. Officers would call ahead to let the families know they were on their way, and then bring the gifts to the front porch.

photo by: Lawrence Police Department/Contributed Photo

Sgt. Robert Neff of the Lawrence Police Department, left, and his family deliver gifts for Blue Santa in December 2020.

“We also told the parents that if the kids would like to say hello or wave to the officers, that they could certainly do that from the comfort of their home by opening their doors (or) opening their windows and waving at our officers to show their appreciation and also to let the officers see the children that we’re helping,” Ramsey said.

She said Blue Santa typically helps about 200 families each year, and according to the organization’s website, the previous record number of families Blue Santa helped was 223 in 2017. This year, the program served nearly 100 additional families.

Ramsey said altogether, the program provided gifts to 322 families with about 600 children. With each delivery, officers also bring a ham and a $25 gift card for Dillons grocery store. Ramsey said the organization usually spends about $5,000 on gift cards and $2,000 on hams; this year, it spent about $8,000 on gift cards and $4,000 on hams.

The organization also had to do something it never had to do before: The need was so great this year that the program had to stop accepting new applications a day early, Ramsey said.

“We were seeing such an influx in customers and applicants, and we wanted to make sure that we could assist those families and children that we had accepted to the best of our ability,” she said.

But Blue Santa was still able to help more families than ever, and Ramsey said the organization is “very, very thankful” to be able to do that. She said the program relies solely on donations of toys and money from the community and from law enforcement officers.

photo by: Jenn Hethcoat/Contributed Photo

Twin sisters Douglas County Sheriff’s Deputy Breanna Pence and Lawrence Police Officer Kelsey Pence hold gifts to be delivered as part of LPD’s annual Blue Santa program, Dec. 16, 2020.

“We could not run this program without those donations, and it really is about the kids, and so it really warms our hearts to know that the Lawrence community is so giving and we’re able to help so many families because of the community and their generosity,” she said.

Ramsey also noted that the department received more thank-yous this year than in years past.

“So many kids wanted to greet our officers and take pictures and send us thank-you cards and tell us how much we meant to them,” she said.

Ramsey said Blue Santa accepts donations year-round, and the best way for families to stay up to date on how to apply for next year is to follow the organization’s Facebook page at facebook.com/lkpdbluesanta. To learn more about Blue Santa or how to make a donation, email lpdbluesanta@gmail.com.

Ramsey said they discovered that it was pretty efficient to have families apply primarily online rather than in person, so they might continue to do that in the future.

“And if we need to continue to do deliveries the way that we did them this year with a porch drop-off in order to keep everyone safe and to be able to help families in the quantities that we did this year, then we are prepared to go ahead and do that again next year,” she said. “We just kind of have to wait and see what next year looks like.”

photo by: Lawrence Blue Santa Facebook page/Contributed Photo

Volunteers work to wrap and organize gifts to be delivered to families as part of the Lawrence Police Department’s annual Blue Santa program, Dec. 13, 2020.

photo by: Jenn Hethcoat/Contributed Photo

Twin sisters Douglas County Sheriff’s Deputy Breanna Pence and Lawrence Police Officer Kelsey Pence prepare to deliver gifts as part of LPD’s annual Blue Santa program, Dec. 16, 2020.

photo by: Lawrence Blue Santa Facebook page/Contributed Photo

Amid the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, volunteers who helped with the Lawrence Police Department’s annual Blue Santa charity benefit received special masks.