BOSTON (WBZ-AM) -- Each month, “WBZ Cares” highlights a worthy non-profit organization and tells the story of what that organization does for the community. This month WBZ is profiling Cops for Kids with Cancer, a non-profit organization focused on raising funds to provide assistance to families of children fighting cancer, to improve their quality of life and ease financial burdens so all energies can go to helping their child beat cancer.
Former Boston Police Superintendent-in-Chief Bob Faherty is one of the founding members of Cops for Kids with Cancer. He's been with the charity since it began in 2002.
“We tried to keep it in Massachusetts, but the need was so great that now we do New England,” Faherty outlined.
Every month they select 8 families with a child battling cancer and award them $5,000 dollars each.
“It's a real non-profit and no one gets paid. All the money goes to the families and the children and the police departments really step up”, Faherty said.
Board chairman Mass state police lieutenant Bill Coulter says by keeping the overhead low they can help more families.
“What we're really proud of is that we pay back 95-percent of our money that comes in we pay back. A big fee is credit card fees. So when someone wants to give us money on our website we actually respond to them and say if you want to give us $100, we have a 3% fee, do you want to pay that too? 90% of them say yes, and they pay us $103. So that we really focus on just going right back to the families. I wish I could do $20 a month. That would be $100,000 a month. I know there's money out there for us to do that. We just have to get to it,” Coulter stated.
In addition to providing some much-needed financial relief to struggling families the charity also sends a strong message about a commitment to community policing and the ties law officers have to the neighborhoods they serve.
“9 out of 10 of them we have the family go to their police department, so that they leave there with a positive feeling of police. We always try to introduce them to the local police and say, ‘Look, this is your number one support line. If something bad ever happens at your house, call them first, they're your best friends.’ So now they have police that are their friends. Then they understand who we are,” Coulter explained.
WBZ NewsRadio1030's Shari Small Reports