Police officers from the Orange County sheriff’s department in Southern California have collected presents to give to children in need in order to give back to the community during the holidays.
The presents collected will be delivered to the children’s shelter, Orangewood Children’s Home, CBS Minnesota reported. The children’s home is a safe haven for children who have been orphaned, abused, or uncared for.
Orange County Ca. Deputy Abandoned As An Infant Helps Bring Christmas Gifts To Same Children’s Shelter Where He Was Taken https://t.co/kSHKi5UeMa
— Blue Lives Matter (@RetiredNYCPD) December 23, 2020
For Deputy Josh Broadwater, the toy drive hits home the most as he spent some time at the Orangewood Children’s Home. As an infant, Broadwater was left in the restroom of a gas station in Anaheim, Calif., with a note that read, “Please love me.” Broadwater was then taken to the Orangewood Children’s Home.
Since then, any change the deputy gets, he tries to give back as a way to honor where he came from, and where he is now. “For me, being where a lot of these kids are – I’ve been there,” he explained.
“Anytime we do these toy drives, it’s just something I try to get involved in. This year I actually volunteered to be in charge of it, at least for our shift, and it was one of those things that it grew and grew and grew to more than I ever could have imagined,” Broadwater explained. (RELATED: This Year’s ‘War on Christmas’ Looks A Little Different In A Pandemic)
The assortment of gifts Broadwater ended up collecting for the children’s home ended up totaling nearly 833 gifts.
Broadwater explained, “Everybody sees one side but they never get to see this side that we go out of our way to do things for other people and hopefully make somebody’s Christmas a little bit better.”
“To me, it shows the other side of what we do in law enforcement,” he added.