Brunswick police officer Tom Stanton congratulates athletes at the 2011 Special Olympics Maine summer games in Orono. (Courtesy of Tom Stanton)
Last year, more than 700 officers from the Maine law enforcement community raised more than $228,000 for the program, which Brunswick Police Chief Richard Rizzo said Wednesday is a “worthy cause.”
Brunswick raised $3,000 last year through a variety of events, according to Brunswick Police Officer Tom Stanton, who with Communications Officer Mari Smith, coordinates fundraising efforts by area law enforcement agencies, and volunteers at the annual Special Olympics games.
Special Olympics is a yearround athletic training and sports competition program for people of all ages with intellectual disabilities. More than 3,200 athletes participate in Maine.
Tip a Cop
This year’s fundraising begins in Brunswick on Friday evening, when officers and communications dispatchers from the Brunswick, Richmond and Freeport police departments, along with Sagadahoc County Sheriff ’s Office, will help serve food at Applebee’s restaurant at Cook’s Corner.
From 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., tips will be collected to benefit Special Olympics Maine.
Last year’s Tip a Cop event raised $1,100 in four hours, Stanton said.
Rizzo, who participated last year and will again collect tips this Friday, said he developed a new appreciation for the work done by wait staff.
“I had a good time last year,” he said Wednesday. “My daughter was a waitress. It’s a grueling job, and I didn’t realize how hard these waitresses work. I have a much better appreciation.”
Torch Run
The primary source of funds for Special Olympics Maine’s $1 million annual budget, however, begins in early June — just prior to the annual summer games in Orono — when law enforcement officers from Kittery to Fort Kent will participate in the annual Torch Run.
On June 6, a team of Brunswick officers — including Stanton — will run a 10- mile route through town.
The following day, officers from Brunswick and Topsham, as well as Sagadahoc County, will bike to Richmond to deliver the torch.
All proceeds go toward providing Maine’s 3,200 athletes with sports equipment, uniforms, proper training, housing and meals at their events, as well as the rental of sports facilities, training of coaches and officials, the operation of Camp Tall Pines and other expenses.
Police seek $25 donations to sponsor officers running in the Torch Run, and businesses or individuals to “Adopt a Mile” of the route for $100 — with a sign denoting the sponsorship placed on the Torch Run route the day of the run.
Stanton, who has attended the Special Olympics Maine winter and summer games in recent years, joined the Torch Run when he was 16, while his father was a police officer in Lisbon.
“I watched him run down (Route) 196, and I started running with them,” Stanton said Wednesday. “Then I went with Detective (William) Tapley when he was the (school resource officer) to help out with the summer games in Orono. I’ve pretty much been involved since then.”
Smith, who is not a runner, has volunteered for the Torch Run since 1988, when she began working as a dispatcher for the Freeport Police Department.
Now a communications officer in Brunswick, she coordinates the run from Scarborough to Brunswick, and volunteers at the summer games in Orono, handing out medals “and making many friends,” she said today.
“To me, people with intellectual disabilities are sometimes forgotten, but with the support of Special Olympics and the law enforcement Torch Run, those with disabilities are able to participate in various sporting events throughout the year,” she said. “Try volunteering at one event and you instantly become a member of the Special Olympics family.”
Stanton said watching athletes experience “the simplest pleasure” at the Special Olympics offers him perspective.
“It’s an experience that, once you go up and watch the kids compete, (purely) out of the joy of competing and doing better, whether they get a gold medal or a ribbon, they’re excited and it’s something they live for throughout the year,” he said. “It’s the simplest pleasure.”
The Brunswick Police Department has participated in fundraising for Special Olympics Maine for years, but Rizzo said Wednesday that Stanton and Smith “have picked up the ball and run with it” in recent years and “really re-energized us.”
The 2012 Special Olympics Maine summer games are scheduled for June 8 to 10 at the University of Maine in Orono.
Future local fundraising events include a “Serve and Protect Day” on July 28 at the Irving Circle K gas station on Pleasant Street, where officers will pump gas and accept donations from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; a raffle on Sept. 3; and a Heritage Soft Tail Harley Davidson raffle, for which tickets are on sale through Oct. 1 at the Brunswick Police Department dispatch center.
For more information or to participate as a sponsor in the Torch Run, call Stanton or Smith at 725-5521.
bbrogan@timesrecord.com
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