November 10, 2021
Jim Evancho
This past weekend was the final event held by The Anniston Police Foundation with “Breakfast with the Chief”. Chief Nick Bowles was present to meet and greet all of the attendee’s and to thank the foundation for all its help for the Anniston Police Department in the last year. Also present from the police department was K-9 Officer Corporal Robert Quinn, Special Response Team (SRT) Assistant Commander Lieutenant Kyle Price, and members from the SRT and a few patrol officers. After breakfast was served Chief Bowles addressed the group and the members of the Anniston Police Foundation to thank them for the support they have received. The Chief went on to state that prior to the foundation the SRT group had extremely outdated ballistic vests that also did not match causing less uniformity. The foundation had raised enough money to enable the department to purchase new vests for the response team.
The next person to speak was K-9 Cpl. Quinn who thanked the foundation for raising enough funds to restart the K-9 Unit. The foundation was able to raise the funds to purchase Tito so the unit could be started again. He went on to say that Tito has been a huge asset for the department and for the community by helping to already locate a large amount of narcotics.
The final Anniston police officer to speak was Lt. Price of the Special Response Team. Price thanked the the foundation for all its support and talked about the new vests for the team. He discussed how the old vests could be dated back towards the end of the Vietnam war and they were in different colors and designs. He went on to say that it makes the team look better to all be in the same uniform and gear when they go on search warrant and arrest warrant executions.
Cathy Lilio is the President of the non-profit group, The Anniston Police Foundation. Mrs. Lilio took some time to speak with us about the foundation and what the future may hold. The Anniston Police Foundation has been up and running for the past two years and was started as a way to raise funds specifically for the Anniston Police Department. Although the City of Anniston does provide a budget that Chief Bowles is happy with they just don’t have enough to also provide a lot of the more expensive police equipment that is needed. The foundation was created to help raise the funds to update equipment that APD needs to better help the community. They are able to raise funds through various fund-raisers they host each year. The largest is the Charity Golf Tournament held at Cane Creek Golf Club where they have many local businesses come out and sponsor holes, tee off area’s, and other places on the course.
Mrs. Lilio stated that there are seven board members and each of them is a volunteer and no one receives any form of paycheck. They do this to ensure each dollar raised is to be given back out to the department or their scholarship program. Currently they only have a Facebook page that lists all of the upcoming events and public press releases. They do expect to have a website soon so they will be able to provide more information to the community and supporters.
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