Marco Island students, For the Love of Cats team up to provide stuffed animals to police department

Reporter: Tiffany Rizzo
Published: Updated:
Two Marco Island students partnered up with a For the Love of Cats to donate stuffed animals to the Marco Island Police Department. (CREDIT: WINK News)

A cat rescue in Collier County teamed up with students on Marco Island to collect used stuffed animals for the Marco Island Police Department.

The students collected more than 100 stuffed animals that will soon go to new homes.

“They were used stuffed animals from younger kids and we brought them home, washed them, tied the thing on them and put them in bags,” said Liberty Johannes, a student and a volunteer For the Love of Cats.

Marco Island police officers plan to give them to children they come across during emergency calls.

“It starts to build that relationship with the police officer and it starts to build trust and that gives them a chance to open up and feel comfortable around the adult and police officer and move on and discuss what happened to them,” said Marco Island Police Chief Tracy Frazzano.

Jan Rich, the founder of For the Love of Cats, said the stuffed animals will provide the “tiniest bit of comfort in such a horrible crisis situation, I think is a good thing to do.”

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