New Mexico’s police departments were chronically understaffed, but officials thought veterans in need of jobs might offer a solution. The New Mexico Department of Public Safety carefully studied the training regimen for military police, and found that about ten years ago, the military changed its training methods to more closely match those used for civilian police. They decided to create a new program for veterans who’d served in military law enforcement, called Transition With Honor, giving them the chance to qualify as civilian police officers by taking a free one-week course, followed by a test, compared with four months of classes non-veterans must take to join the force.
Mike Sine is the first veteran to take advantage of this program. He served at Kirtland Air Force Base as a military policeman, and enrolled in the program after he left the Air Force. He found a job as a police officer in Bosque Farms, south of Albuquerque, just two months after completing the fast-track program.
Now, he’s spreading the word to other veterans. “Hopefully, I’ll be helping a lot of people on base make the transition,” Sine told Charles D. Brunt of the Albuquerque Journal. “Some of my old coworkers have been contacting me, so hopefully that program will continue to expand.”
MORE: Giving Homeless Vets A Helping Hand and A New Uniform
Tag: New Mexico
How a Man With Down Syndrome Made This Establishment the “World’s Friendliest Restaurant”
Tim Harris has Down Syndrome. He also owns and operates his own restaurant, Tim’s Place in Albuquerque, which is known around town as the “world’s friendliest restaurant.” It’s easy to see why. “We serve breakfast, lunch and hugs,” Tim said in a video created by AOL (although just last week the restaurant also started serving dinner). “The hugs are the best part.” Every morning, Harris gets up at 5:30 a.m. and literally dances his way to work. Every customer who comes through the doors at Tim’s Place is greeted by the hands-on owner, who introduces himself and pulls them into a big hug. In Harris’s eyes, it’s the hugs that make the place special. “The hugs are way more important than the food,” he says. When he was a kid, Harris told his mom and dad, Keith and Jeannie, that he wanted to run a restaurant. As he got older, his parents recognized that this was a dream that wasn’t going away. Now, Tim’s Place is a family affair. Harris’s dad helped him get the business started, and his older brother Dan is the restaurant’s operations manager. As far as the family knows, Harris is the only person with Down syndrome to run a restaurant in the U.S., but they hope he won’t be the last. “I did not let my disability crush my dreams,” Harris says. “People with disabilities, they can do anything they set their mind to. We’re a gift to the world.”
MORE: The Restaurant Without a Cash Register
When All You Want For Christmas Is Two Well-Fed Vets
For people who want to give loved ones meaningful holiday gifts, but don’t want to add to their piles of needless stuff, the Alternative Gift Market in Santa Fe offers a solution. Patrons can buy presents that benefit five different New Mexico charities, and chat with representatives of those nonprofits to learn about the good work their gifts will accomplish. Shoppers can choose to help feed a veteran through the nonprofit New Mexico Veterans Helping Homeless Veterans, or buy a children’s book for the library through the Santa Fe Public Library’s Early Readers Program. They can sponsor prenatal lab tests for low-income pregnant women through La Familia Medical Center or give a needy family a safe place to stay for the night through Esperanza Shelter for Battered Families. Last year the Alternative Gift Market brought in $30,000 for its charities, and cluttered gift recipients house with nothing but goodwill.