Foundation for Michigan Police Officer Killed in Line of Duty Pays Off Lunch Debt at Former School
Three years after he was killed in the line of duty, the Officer Collin Rose Memorial Foundation is helping students at his former school.
Rose was a police officer at Wayne State University. He was fatally shot during a traffic stop in November of 2016. He was only 29.
Chris Powell is president of the Officer Collin Rose Memorial Foundation and was Rose's best friend. He knew that Rose loved kids and thought it would be fitting to do something for Rose's hometown of Richland.
"Kids were Collin's weakness," he said. "He would buy lunch and give people shoes on patrol."
Powell contacted the Gull Lake school district and was shocked to learn that roughly 20% of the school's population had outstanding lunch debt, totaling about $3,400.
He took his idea to his foundation's board, who unanimously agreed to pay a total of $3,501.28 for students' outstanding lunch debt. The exact dollar amount is a tribute to Rose's badge number, 128.
"This was in Collin's character, and it's consistent with who he was as a person," Powell said.