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Police Union Starts Fundraising Effort

B Y A NDREW G OROSKO

The Newtown Police Union has begun its annual fund raising campaign for

charitable purposes, union president Acting Lieutenant Henry Stormer said this

week.

The union is Local 3153 of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of

Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). It is a member of American Federation of

State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Connecticut Council of

Police Unions, No. 15.

In a townwide mailing, the union is seeking donations from the residents and

businesses of the community.

"This year the police union is not using the services of a fundraising company

or telemarketer. We felt as a whole that the concerns of citizens over their

donations being split between the union and a fund raising company could no

longer be ignored," according to Acting Lieutenant Stormer.

"On the average, if a fund raising company received 65 percent of the

donation, then $6.50 of every $10 (collected) went to the company (and) only

$3.50 went to the union," he noted.

With the donation of printing and mailing costs, as well as the donation of

labor by union members and their families, the overhead costs for the

fundraising drive were kept to a minimum, Acting Lieutenant Stormer said.

Donations to drive will benefit the union and the civic, sports and

humanitarian organizations that the union supports, he said. "Please let us

emphasize that this is the only fund raising activity sanctioned by the

membership of the Newtown Police Union."

Acting Lieutenant Stormer stressed that any donations which residents give to

any state-based, national or international police organizations which solicit

donations locally don't directly benefit the community.

Money raised by the union has been used to help support organizations such as:

Newtown Little League, Newtown Girls Softball and Newtown Pop Warner. Union

funds also have been donated to Newtown High School sports programs, Newtown

athletes who need sponsors for regional and national team participations,

needy families during the holiday season, and medical equipment for

handicapped people. In 1995, the union started a scholarship for a high school

senior who go on to higher education in law enforcement.

Also, union funds have been used to defray the cost of local police equipment

purchases.

Funds also aid the families whose police officer members have been killed in

the line of duty in Connecticut, and police families who need financial help

due to illness, fires and weather-related emergencies, according to Acting

Lieutenant Stormer.