LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. — The Mount Joy Police Department and Fire Department Mount Joy are teaming up in a “one-of-a-kind” effort to raise funds and awareness for autism ahead of Autism Awareness Month, which is celebrated in April.
The departments launched their joint website last week and have already raised over $2,000. They will be selling t-shirt designs and collectable patches.
The concept behind this initiative started when both departments met for a debriefing and noticed a high percentage of calls they responded to involved some sort of mental health related event.
“Mount Joy is such a close knit community, we wanted to come up with an idea or plan that would relate to the community, that would be able to help out with future calls and future events down the road," Michael D. Klock, from the Mount Joy Borough Police Department said.
The departments teamed up a with a local organization called Andrew's Gift, which provides resources to those individuals living in Central Pennsylvania with autism to enable their development and enrich their lives.
“Our goal through this is to potentially help these individuals with autism, so if they do experience a crisis, or a major event, that these resources that they would get through Andrew’s Gift would help us down the road as well," Klock said.
“It’s the first time that we’ve been able to do a joint effort like this and I think it was great to see the success so far, and see we still have three-and-a-half weeks to go," Matt Kratz, from the Mount Joy fire department said.
The initiative will run for the whole month of March and the departments are hoping to raise $7,500.