172536_CPCA_2020_Spring Magazine - Final | Page 40

Every Hour, Every Day
By: Hannah Martinez
Community Liaison Officer –Lost Alamitos Police Department
The city of Los Alamitos is a small tight-knit community with a population of 11,721 and is home to more than 2,000
businesses. The businesses are made up of light manufacturing and wholesale companies, retail establishments, and restaurants.
When the COVID-19 pandemic began progressing and the safer-at-home order went into effect in March, many
people were concerned about what would happen to the businesses in Los Alamitos. Concerned, as many were, our first
thoughts as a department were to figure out in what ways we could support our local businesses.
There are many restaurants in our
city, so we thought ordering food
to go as often as possible would
help since many restaurants had to close
their dine-in services to abide by the order. A
former officer from our department started
a page on Facebook entitled “Save Our Los
Alamitos Family Owned Restaurants” to
help spread the word within the community
to support the local restaurants whenever
possible. After only a couple months of
existence, the page has garnered more than
570 likes and followers continue to share
what restaurant they have chosen to support.
A short time after, we began to get requests
from businesses within and outside of Los
Alamitos, and residents, offering to donate
meals to the department. Multiple times a
week, the community continues to bring
40 CALIFORNIA POLICE CHIEF | www.californiapolicechiefs.org