Waterloo Regional Police lend helping hand to colleague

Members of the Waterloo Regional Police Service recently went above and beyond to help a colleague in need.

Just before Christmas, members of the police service discovered one of the facility’s maintenance workers was in need of assistance, and his colleagues stepped up.

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“Around Christmastime, some employees and our members at South Division became aware of one of the staff members who worked in the maintenance department (and) had been taking multiple buses to get to work each day,” explained police spokesperson Cherri Greeno.

“He was attempting to save up to buy a used vehicle for himself, and members became aware of that and decided to take it upon themselves to raise some money to help.

“Lots of people donated, and enough money was raised to buy him a used vehicle.”

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Greeno explained that some officers surprised the maintenance worker by saying there was a leak in the garage and they needed his help fixing it. They took him down to the garage, where there were a dozen employees waiting, along with a Hyundai sedan that had a giant bow attached.

“He was pretty emotional, obviously — very thankful — couldn’t believe that the members had come together to do that for him,” Greeno said.

“But really, this is just an example of (how) our members go above and beyond every day, whether they’re on duty or not, and this is just another example of how they came together to help someone in the community.”

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There was enough money raised to help the man get home at Christmas to see his family and help with any costs that may arise with his new used vehicle.

Waterloo Regional Police were not initially looking to publicize the story, but word leaked out anyway.

“He’s pretty humble so we didn’t want to draw too much attention to it,” Greeno said.