Although Chilton County Sheriff Kevin Davis often spends his time chasing criminals, he recently had the opportunity to deliver donated toys to children who will more than likely spend the Christmas holiday in the hospital.

Davis was part of 16 different aviation units from across Alabama who delivered donated toys to the Sugar Plum Workshop, a room at Children’s Hospital for parents of children who will spend the holidays in the hospital to go and pick out gifts.

“A lot of these parents who have kids who are sick in the hospital don’t have time to go out and buy Christmas gifts so we brought the gifts to them,” Davis said. “It was a great time.”

Davis said the Chilton County Sheriff’s Department Aviation Unit decided to fund the project that included purchasing the toys to deliver to the children.

“I had different agents throughout the department who donated money to purchase the toys,” Davis said. “None of it was tax funded and a lot of people within the department offered to help out in purchasing the toys.”

Davis said all of the aviation units gathered at the Bessemer Airport to fly to Children’s Hospital in Birmingham and deliver the toys atop the hospital’s helipad every two minutes.

“The place where we landed was visible from a lot of the children’s hospital rooms so every two minutes a different helicopter would land and deliver the toys so a lot of the children could see from their rooms,” Davis said. “It was sheer entertainment for them seeing everything unloaded on the roof. Not only did the kids get to enjoy the toys but they also enjoyed seeing the helicopters.”

Davis said the impact of seeing the children receiving the toys and enjoying the helicopters flying in was tremendous.

“I spend a lot of time with the criminal side of life,” Davis said. “To be able to be involved in something that is good was just wonderful. It was also great for our aviation unit to be able to network with other aviation units across the state allowing us to meet every other aviation unit throughout Alabama.”

In addition to covering the expense for the toys to be delivered, Davis said the aviation department also covered the expense to fly the helicopter from Chilton County to Birmingham.