Seth Reid, a scout with Troop 925 which meets at Westland Baptist Church, has gathered items to create care packages for local law enforcement agencies to share with children affected by traumatic incidents. Seth began the project with a goal of 300 kits, but was able to raise funds to exceed that number significantly, he said.

“I think it’s great,” Seth’s father Jimmy Reid said. “I mean, he thought of the project all on his own, executed it, you know, and had a goal of doing 300 bags to benefit one police department which was (Houston Police Department West) and had such an outpouring from our church, some developers in the area and a lot of friends and family to where he ended up doing about (1,300 to) 1,400 bags total.”

Seth said he came up with the idea after remembering touring the Katy Police Department while in Cub Scouts years ago.

“They had this one room (at Katy PD) that had a bunch of stuffed animals and I thought that was kind of cool,” Seth said.

Each of the care packages has a variety of items to help children who interact with law enforcement deal with the stress of the situation. Each kit comes in a drawstring backpack with packs of Kleenex, stress balls, color pens, coloring books, slap bracelets, flashlights with batteries and a small stuffed animal, according to an information sheet Seth provided.

Seth said he understands that the goal for those items was to comfort children who are going through a hard time such as having experienced a car accident or being in a situation where a parent had a run-in with police. He said he could see how a simple thing like a stuffed animal or a coloring book could help children deal with such situations better.

Waller County Precinct 4 Constable Joel Trimm whose office received several boxes of the care packages said he appreciated Seth’s work in gathering the items which he knew his officers could use to help children out.

“Seth called and told us about what the project was,” Trimm said. “I thought it was a great idea. We could take these (care packages) and the officers here in my department, the Waller County sheriff’s department will be able to have some of these bags in their patrol cars to give them out to kids that are involved in accidents or things like that. You usually have some small kids and if they’re in a car accident, they’re all upset, so (these will) be great items to be able to give out to them.”