Mar. 6—When human resources generalist Tara Dixon sat down and thought about ways that the Wilson County School District’s Human Resource Department could give back to the community, she thought back to the fire at Glass Creek Apartments in Mt. Juliet.

“It made me start thinking that anytime they come upon those (situations), how it would be so comforting to have a blanket,” Dixon said. “What really got me thinking was those apartments that caught on fire and all those people that were displaced and how scary it was for them.”

Dixon brought the idea to her supervisor, who took it to Deputy Director of Human Resources Rebecca Owens. Owens approached Director of Schools Jeff Luttrell to approve the service project.

“It got approved so I went back and contacted all of the various law enforcement agencies that we have in the area and asked them how many patrol cars they had because we would like to put one blanket in each patrol car,” Dixon said. “I gathered that information and talked to our team about collectively putting the effort together.”

The human resources department placed donation boxes at the Wilson County Schools Academic Training Complex.

“They were very appreciative,” Dixon said. “I think they also knew when they came to get the blankets how important it is to have comfort in times of distress like car accidents or domestic abuse or apartment fires.

After beginning the project in January, Dixon and her team exceeded their goal of 200 blankets, collecting 246.

“I went to Walmart to look for reasonably priced lap blankets, because we asked for brand new ones,” Dixon said. “They were between the range of $3 and $5. I think once people understood what this was going for, it wasn’t an issue at all. They just started rolling in and everybody gave back. It was an amazing thing to watch how quickly people wanted to give back to their community.”

The Wilson County Sheriff’s Office received blankets alongside the Mt. Juliet Police Department and Lebanon Police Department on Thursday.

“A lot of times we’ll come across a bad accident and it may be a situation that it’s really cold or it’s raining outside,” sheriff’s office public information officer Scott Moore said. “That’s very traumatic for a young child to go through so we’ll have our patrol cars stocked with things such as lap blankets, stuffed animals and anything that we can provide to give comfort to children that are involved. It’s just a traumatic experience for them to go through, and we want to make sure that we do everything we can to keep them calm and keep them comfortable during situations like that.”

Moore said that after he was reached out to by the school district, the sheriff’s office received 45 blankets.

“I’ve been in situations before where a child was going through a lot of emotions,” Moore said. “It affects them physically, mentally and emotionally.”

For Dixon, the hand-off on Thursday was a heartwarming moment.

“It was very rewarding on several levels, watching something that you started coming to fruition, but also to see how awesome Wilson County is and see everybody genuinely want to give back to the community. It was very effortless, and it made my heart swell.”