Levelland’s Blue and You Organization will be hosting their Blue Santa event Saturday, beginning at 8 a.m.
The winter-time activity, which Blue and You President Albert Garcia said is their biggest event, allows for sponsored local children to be picked up by Levelland Police Department (LPD) for breakfast and a visit to Walmart for shopping.
“I think the first year, we may have sponsored 10 kiddos. Last year, we sponsored 23 kiddos,” Garcia said. “And we upped the amount of funds that we put into each one of the children’s stockings, so to speak.”
Levelland’s Blue Santa came from something that organizations were already doing in other Texas cities, Garcia said. He took the idea and started asking about how it worked.
“We just gathered all the information we could and built what we have now, which is the Blue Santa program,” Garcia said.
Even within Levelland, an organization – Hockley County Family Outreach – was providing support to children who were not able to enjoy Christmas as much as others due to financial constraints, Garcia said. Blue and You had been partnered with them, and when Love Levelland picked up the idea, Blue and You continued their participation in the idea.
“As another organization that was in line with our primary mission statement of helping our community members, it was just perfect sense to team up with them,” Garcia said.
Now the two organizations partner every year, the former chief said. When Love Levelland sends out their applications to families with children in need, Blue and You gets to select as many children as they can help, while other applications are sent to community members that can sponsor the children as well.
Blue Santa is one of multiple events Blue and You does throughout the year. Since the organization’s creation in March 2020, its community activities mentioned by Garcia include Texas Night Out and a 5k run.
Garcia said funds from the events go back into the community, as well as to other organizations with similar mission statements.
The idea for the not-forprofit Blue and You was brought up at LPD as a way to promote what the department stood for, said Garcia, who was Levelland’s police chief at the time of its creation.
He said as chief, he also felt it was important that LPD started to develop a more positive relationship with the community.
“After its inception, we started doing more and more stuff with our community members,” Garcia said. Now, the chief said he feels like they’ve made a positive impact on deterring crime in the city. “Levelland, I feel like now, is a very safe city,” Garcia said.
He said the not-for-profit was intended to be an LPD effort, but now, they’re trying to involve as much public safety personnel in Hockley County that they can.
“But it has been so successful that our board was kind of like, you know, we need to really involve more and more public safety personnel and let this be a big thing throughout the entire county,” Garcia said, “where all citizens in Hockley County can see what their public safety organizations are doing and how they can help one another.”
He said especially now in Levelland, with LPD’s struggle in hiring officers and having them on staff, it’s that much more important that the citizens help the police force.
“Levelland PD, Hockley County, DPS,” Garcia said. “Anyone that they can help with information, whenever they have information, to make sure that our communities stay safe.”
He said anyone interested in becoming a Blue and You member can reach out to either the organization’s board or the Levelland Police Department.
“There’s no expense to you other than time and effort,” Garcia said. “That’s all that we’re looking for: is people that care about our community, people that want to make a difference, and people that want to make a positive impact.”