By Lee Hermiston
The Gazette
IOWA CITY — Kristie Doser, executive director of the Domestic Violence Intervention Program, has seen the looks on mothers’ faces when they arrive at the shelter the day before Christmas.
“The moms are just devastated because they know they weren’t able to bring in any of the gifts,” Doser said.
Thanks in part to the efforts of a local law enforcement officer, those concerns can be put at ease. For close to 20 years, Juan Santiago, a high-risk unit officer with the Department of Corrections and a part-time North Liberty police officer, has been collecting toys and cash for the shelter to make sure each child has a gift on Christmas morning. This will mark the 19th year Santiago will provide donations to the shelter.
“I can’t say enough about the good work he does,” Doser said. “We try to make Christmas as personal as we can for families. Juan’s efforts have given us the opportunity to be successful in that. We wouldn’t be able to do it without him.”
For Santiago, the donation effort is a deeply personal one. Raised in the Bronx, he spent much of his youth in foster care. Even when he was reunited as a teenager with his birth mother, life was not always stable.
“We went through a lot of domestic violence situations,” he said. “We often spent the holidays either living with other family members or with friends because there was always some kind of family dispute during the holidays. We didn’t get to celebrate Christmas like everyone else did. We rarely got gifts and, if we did, they were really cheap or secondhand stuff.”
During these years, Santiago viewed police as his “saviors,” something that shaped his career choices. After serving in the Marine Corps, moving to Iowa and working as a welfare reform worker, Santiago joined the Department of Corrections in 1999. In 2007, he was hired part-time by North Liberty.
Santiago said the toy donation began when he was a welfare reform worker. He used his side business as a DJ to grow it, accepting toy donations instead of a cover charge for shows.
“It just exploded from there,” he said.
Now, the donation has support from Johnson County’s law enforcement community. Those wishing to contribute non-violent toys can find donation boxes at each of the law enforcement headquarters in Johnson County except University Heights, which will be joining in the effort next year.
While the domestic violence program has always been the recipient of his efforts, Santiago — with the help of a Cedar Rapids high school student — last year expanded into Linn County. He said 2014 was his biggest year ever, requiring a U-Haul truck to move all of the donations to the shelter and to Waypoint Services for Women, Children and Families in Cedar Rapids.
One thing that makes Santiago’s drive different is that he accepts only non-violent toys — no toy guns, or action figures and the like. And he makes an effort to get gifts for teenagers at the shelter, in the form of $50 gift cards to Kmart purchased with cash donations.
Unopened toys are given out for birthdays through the rest of the year and leftover gift cards are used to purchase school supplies and other items as needs arise.
“One person at the shelter told me it’s even helped with getting prom clothes,” he said.
Because the location of the domestic violence shelter is meant to be kept secret, Santiago cannot show up there with the toys. Instead, he’ll pick up donations on Friday and deliver them to a separate location — typically a space donated by a business — on Saturday. There, domestic violence program staff will set up a holiday store for mothers to pick out gifts for their children. Children also can come and browse other donated items to pick out gifts for their mothers.
The gifts are opened Christmas morning. Santiago has never been there in person to see the looks on the families’ faces.
“Just knowing that they got the gifts is enough for me,” he said.
The toy donation is just one thing Santiago does throughout the year to be a community-oriented police officer. He said he’s less interested in “bagging and tagging” and more interested in promoting safety and building relationships, especially with children.
Santiago makes a point to stop and speak with any child he sees waving to him when he’s on patrol. This year, North Liberty recognized those efforts by naming him Officer of the Year.
Santiago called the recognition “humbling.”
“The community needs to see we’re not bad people,” he said. “We care about the community.”
Of course, North Liberty isn’t the only one who recognizes those efforts.
“We love him,” Doser said. “He has been a constant for us for so many years. We know our families are going to be well cared for and that’s huge.”
Copyright 2015 The Gazette