Michelle Anderson just wanted to do something to say thank you.
So she got a few close friends together, made a few phone calls, and had more than 500 people show up at Lathrop’s Valverde Park to say thank you to the police officers and first responders that go to work every day to keep people safe.
According to Anderson, who organized the event along with Vada Kingman, Debbie Rock and Deborah Salas, even though the group had enough people to handle the massive crowd that turned out, it defied their initial expectations for a first-year gathering that she hopes to make an annual thing moving forward.
“It was really just a chance to say thank you to these people as a community for the work that they do,” Anderson said. “And when you have police officers coming up to you and thanking you for putting an event like this together, it says a lot about the nature of things today and how police officers and first responders need this now more than ever.”
The event, which was sponsored by Lathrop Storage, River Islands, USA Motors, Thrive Church, Steve Dresser, Steven Macias, Souza Vivani Plumbing, Lathrop Veterinary and an anonymous donor, included appearances by Splash from the Stockton Ports and Al from the Modesto Nuts as well as local elected officials and dignitaries that came out to offer their own thanks to those who put on the uniform.
Lathrop City Councilmen Mark Elliott and Steve Dresser grilled up hot dogs that were provided by Mayor Sonny Dhaliwal, and students from Lathrop High School and be.Tech handed them out to residents along with chips, watermelon, ice cream bars and soda.
The Dell’Osso Farms face painting team was also on hand, and Darren Ferreira from 99.3 KJOY in Stockton served as the event emcee.
All of the police officers and firefighters who attended were sent home with a “thank you” bag that contained cards from local students and community youth groups recognizing the men and women for their service.
“For a first-year event, we really had an awesome turnout,” Anderson said. “Chief Hood was joking with me as we were cleaning up about when we were going to have it next year because it was so popular, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.
“Today you don’t always see the most positive stories about law enforcement and so we wanted to do something to show the community the people who risk their lives to do this job and keep us safe. This was really all about saying thank you.”