"Would you mind if I gave you a gift?"
A D.C. police officer with 25 years on the force is celebrating the holiday by hand-delivering care packages to homeless people.
Metropolitan Police Department Officer Juanita Graham is spending 12 days before Christmas giving homeless people kits with sandwiches, toiletries, warm clothes and cards she writes out. She's calling her project "12 days of giving."
"It's my goal to let people that know someone does care about you and you're not forgotten about," the Southeast D.C. native said.
Graham, who works now as a truancy officer, is assembling the care packages every morning before her shift starts, using her own money.
She and her partner Officer Leonard Long Jr. put together the kits and then look for people in need.
"My name is Officer Graham with the Metropolitan Police Department," she said as News4 watched her hand out the bags. "Is this where you stay? Would you mind if I gave you a gift?"
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Graham said she was inspired by another officer she knows who was working to help homeless people. She said she sees a lot of people in need in the course of her day, and that she feels for them.
"A lot of times, we don't know what people's situations and circumstances are. It's not always because of drugs or alcohol," she said. "Sometimes people have lost their jobs. They may have lost their home due to a fire."
MPD Third District Commander Jeffery Carroll said wants D.C. residents to see the range of ways officers work to help communities.
"When the community sees officers out there interacting with the homeless people and other people in need, they realize there's more to just enforcing the laws, arresting people and issuing traffic tickets," he said. "They realize they are real human beings and they're out there helping people in a variety of ways every day."
Graham said she hopes to inspire others to perform acts of kindness.
"We have so much and we take so much for granted," she said.
