Camden County Sheriff Receives Grant To Help Camden County Schools

Some Camden County schools might be safer in the coming years.

The Sheriff’s Office says it’s getting just over 300-thousand dollars to pay three full-time school resource officers for three more years in Stoutland, Mack’s Creek and Hurricane Deck Schools.

Sheriff Tony Helms applied for a grant through the Department of Justice C.O.P.S. Hiring Program.

The 400-million dollar grant has helped hire over 27-hundred full-time police officers in almost 600 law enforcement agencies around the U-S.

***PRESS RELEASE***

On June 2, 2020, the Department of Justice announced nearly $400 million in grant funding through the Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services COPS Hiring Program. The Attorney General announced funding awards to 596 law enforcement agencies across the nation, which allows those agencies to hire 2,732 additional full-time law enforcement professionals.

Sheriff Tony Helms sought the opportunity and applied for the grant to help fund the school resource officer program in the outlying areas of the county. He is excited to announce we were awarded approximately $316,451.00 to fund three full time school resource officers for three years.

In 2017, Sheriff Helms created a partnership with the rural schools. This is the first time in our departments history that we were able to deploy school resource officers to Stoutland, Mack’s Creek and Hurricane Deck schools. As a result, this financial assistance will help assure deputies will remain in that capacity for the next three years.