This produced the idea of making blankets for children who find themselves impacted by tragic events, such as car accidents, fire, a parent’s arrest, witnessing crimes of violence in the home, or being a victim of crime themselves.
Historically, community service hours have been completed at the Boundary County Courthouse, Boundary County Landfill, Boundary County Fairgrounds, Boundary County Restorium, the GROW Community Garden, and local thrift stores.
While these are all valuable places for our juveniles to complete community service hours, and our department will continue to send individuals to these different entities, this new community service project provides not only a way for youth to give back to the community they committed criminal offenses in, but also has allowed time for great conversations and teaching moments for these youth to learn about the impact of tragic events on young children.
Over the past few weeks, several of our juveniles have been involved in making fleece blankets that will be given to local law enforcement agencies, first responders and victim’s services, to in turn be given to children in these moments of crisis.
The youth who have worked on this project have already completed approximately 50 hours of community service and have completed 12 blankets that are ready to be delivered.