These cops are toy story heroes to hundreds of city kids.
Scores of NYPD officers helped collect, arrange and then distribute thousands of toys to city kids in need Saturday.
“This is our annual city-wide sleigh ride that we do every year,” NYPD Assistant Commissioner Alden Foster told The Post. “We work with community-based organizations throughout the city to identify families who are really in need of a gift for the holidays.”
Thousands of donated toys were organized in a de facto warehouse at JFK Airport before they were picked up by flatbed trucks that the NYPD usually uses to transport parade barriers.
The trucks then moved slowly from one community location to the next with holiday music playing on a loudspeaker.
Most of the toys were donated by the First Responders Children’s Foundation, the NYPD Police Foundation and Toys for Tots, an NYPD spokesman said.
The gifts were then given out by dozens of costumed cops, some dressed as superheroes and Disney characters, at several locations in the Bronx and Manhattan.
The event is “overwhelming,” Foster said.
“I had one mother come up to me and say she lost her job and this is just an amazing thing that the police department is doing,” he said.
President and CEO of First Responders Children’s Foundation Jillian Crane said her group provided about 15,000 toys in its sixth year partnering with the NYPD for the event.
“The faces on these children as we drive up with the motorcade, they just look so happy, big smiles,” said Crane, adding that her group sponsors nearly 200 similar events nationwide at the same time. “It’s just magic. We want to deliver the trust.”
The toy drive will continue to pre-selected locations in all five boroughs through Monday.
The post NYPD Santas deliver free toys to city kids in need appeared first on New York Post.
