‘We’re part of the family’

Whenever Glendale residents notify police they’ve left on vacation, furniture is abandoned or graffiti makes its first mark, Marion Mandeson is on patrol.

Mandeson volunteers with the Glendale Police Department’s Retired Senior Volunteer Program. Each week she patrols Glendale in a white volunteer police car giving citations to people who park in fire hydrant zones, or handicapped parking spaces.

She also does house checks to verify a house is safe without unknown cars in the driveway or open windows while the owners are away.

“The Police Department has been so warm and grateful for what we do,” she said. “You walk down the hall and you may not know them — they all look alike to you — but they know us. The next time they’ll see us someplace or other and they recognize us and they appreciate us. It’s really nice and we feel like we’re part of the family.”

Glendale police spokesman Sgt. Tom Lorenz recognizes that volunteers like Mandeson put in more than $100,000 worth of service for the Police Department each year.

“Not only do they provide us boots on the ground per se, but they also provide us with support in other areas,” Lorenz said. “It gives them a feeling of accomplishment because they’re obviously needed.”

Mandeson has a feeling she might hear from more officers once she’s in the newspaper.

“If you put this article out and my picture’s in the paper, I’m quite certain that one of the officers will say to me, ‘That was a nice article about you,’” she said.

“They know us and although I might not know the guy who said it to me, it’s nice that he knows me.”