Morris County Corrections Local 298 State Delegate Rodney Furby and oth-
er members help to unload the Dunellen Local 146 toy trailer. Mainland Local 77 State Delegate Mike Palmentieri hauls in a couple of gifts
to get kids rolling.
SANTA’S PBA WORKSHOP CONTINUED FROM PAGE 27 Days before the toy drive, Kirby was assigned to shopping
spree duty with a $700 budget. Her Santa helpers were happy to
participate in the “Cops in Toyland” mission to help hand-pick
gifts for children stuck in a lifestyle they knew all too well.
“We’re shopping for the babies that don’t have toys,” Kirby
voiced to the children while they scanned the toy aisles. “They
knew specifically what we were doing there.”
Enchanted by the volume of gifts to choose from, Kirby’s niece
set her eyes on a Fisher-Price doll. As Kirby pulled the cart, the
little girl reached out and grabbed the toy.
“Baby would like this,” Kirby noted she said before throwing
the doll in the cart a with a sparkle in her eye, somehow aware
even at such a young age that another foster child’s dream was
about to come true this Christmas. d
After supporting her sister through the adoption process that
took more than a year of background checks, paperwork and
meetings to finalize, Kirby has seen the unstable lifestyle of foster
children firsthand.
“They’ve been in about four to five houses before my sister’s,”
Kirby noted of her new toddler niece and nephew. “It’s hard at
that age. They really need to be in a structured environment.”
Picturing her niece and nephew deprived of gifts and spending
the holidays in a stranger’s home inspired Kirby to ramp up Local
72’s involvement in the Toy Drive this year. She asked her Local to
contribute as much money as possible for gifts and promised to
match the amount with her own contribution.
28
NEW JERSEY COPS
■ DECEMBER 2017