The Michigan Special Olympics last week thanked the Alpena post for its charitable efforts with its emerald award, given annually to agencies raising more than $25,000 to support the organization.

The post raised $26,000 in a raffle that replaced the plunge last year. This year, the plunge raised $31,800, for a fundraising total topping $85,000 for Special Olympics since 2019.

Then again, said Post Commander 1st Lt. John Grimshaw, helping out their community is just what police officers do.

From picking up trash to handing out toys to patronizing local restaurants, police officers immerse themselves in service work that’s a natural extension of their job of protecting public safety, Grimshaw said.

News Photo by Julie Riddle 1st Lt. John Grimshaw, commander of the Michigan State Police-Alpena Post, seated, chats with restaurant owner Denise Ayers at the North Coney Island restaurant in Alpena on Thursday.

And, he explained, every connection to the public helps police get the information they need to keep the community safe.

“That’s how you solve crime,” he said. “People pay attention and tell you what’s going on.”

Throughout the year, residents can spy troopers engaging in service projects, from the posts’ multiple Stuff a Blue Goose events at Christmastime to the annual Trunk-or-Treat festivities in Alpena each October.

In December, troopers stuffed their patrol cars with 665 toys, 58 hygiene products, and 2,000 food items donated by Alpena County residents.

Troopers adopted several families last Thanksgiving, spending their own time and money to purchase and deliver festive meals.

One recipient thanked troopers with tears, saying she could never have provided her children with a special holiday without the officers’ help, Grimshaw said.

In the fall, troopers helped two people battling cancer to prepare their yards for winter, raking and gathering leaves and cleaning up gardens to help those who couldn’t do the work themselves.

On Saturday, troopers cleaned up the stretch of Hubbard Lake Road that they tidy each spring, their effort to make their community more beautiful, Grimshaw said.

While not on road patrol, investigating, or writing reports, officers regularly give back to their community, from building ramps to coaching soccer teams to cleaning headstones of veterans.

“Serving the community is easy for us,” Grimshaw said. “We already do that.”

Such interactions not only strengthen the bond between police and the people they serve — they also help police gather the information they need to respond to crime, Grimshaw said.

Decades ago, he said, police knew their communities intimately, walking their beat and forming relationships with residents, who might invite them in for a meal or offer them a glass of water and a chat as they passed by on foot.

As patrol cars became standard, officers lost some of that intimate connection – and, with it, the resource of a neighborhood looking out for its own and ready to talk to police.

Police rely on the eyes of residents to help them identify things out of place that might solve or stop a crime, Grimshaw said.

When responding to a complaint, troopers often knock on doors nearby, looking for details spotted by alert residents keeping an eye on their neighborhood.

To build the trust necessary to get to those details, police need to be present in their communities as more than uniforms in a rear-view mirror, he said.

He tells troopers making rural patrols to stop when they see a farmer on a tractor and have a chat.

He eats lunch at local restaurants every day, just to see and be seen and to enter the lives of the people he and his troopers serve, Grimshaw said.

At the North Coney Island diner on Alpena’s south side on Thursday, Grimshaw and Detective/Sgt. Jim Lively ordered “the usual.”

Restaurant owner Denise Ayers loves it when police officers stop in for lunch, she said.

“It gives people faith and hope in humanity that they’re normal people, just like us,” Ayers said. “I mean, they’ve gotta eat, too.”

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693 or jriddle@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jriddleX.