MOSES LAKE — The Moses Lake Police Department and local churches joined forces Friday for Faith & Blue at Lions Field in Moses Lake. 

“Faith & Blue is a national initiative to link the faith community with the law enforcement community and bring them together to provide a united front, to be a blessing to a community,” said Pastor Mike Alvarado of Restore City Church, one of several churches participating in the tailgate event. Alvarado, who also serves as an MLPD chaplain, was grilling hot dogs for the attendees while families, officers and ministers played games, had their faces painted and just hung out visiting. The event was timed for just before a Moses Lake High School football game, and so some families from Moses Lake’s opponent, Post Falls, Idaho, took part as well. 

Faith & Blue originated in Atlanta four years ago as an outreach of the U.S. Justice Department to foster connections between law enforcement and faith-based organizations, according to the event’s website. Since then, it’s expanded to more than 1,400 events nationwide, all the same weekend in October. 

“(Then-Chief) Kevin Fuhr started this for us three years ago,” said MLPD Chief David Sands. “And then last year I wanted to do something a little different with the youth of our community, so we started a tailgate function.” 

Food was donated by Moses Lake Presbyterian Church, Sands said, and Restore City Church cooked it up. There were beanbag toss and other games around the area outside Lions Field, and a face painting station where MLHS-themed art seemed prevalent. 

In a community like Moses Lake, faith-based organizations are a vital community hub, and a good way for law enforcement to maintain contact with the people they both serve, Sands said. 

“(Pastors) are the people we reach out to when things are going on,” Sands said. “(From their) congregations, we can kind of get an idea of, 'Hey, what’s the temperature like? What’s going on in the community?' Doug (Sherman), pastor of Grace Harvest (Church), I’ve known him for 30 years. Mike (Alvarado) is one of our chaplains, I’ve known him for close to 20 years. Just good people.” 

“Once a month, we have a Ministerial Association meeting,” Alvarado said. “So whenever they have something they want to share with us, they'll show up to one of those meetings and say, ‘Hey, this is what's going on in the community, something you can pray for, somebody we need your help with.’ Often, the chief will actually go to the different churches and talk to the pastors, let them know they could really use your help with kids, or this is an area of our community that needs a lot of lot of prayer, a lot of support, maybe even donations, things like that.” 

By their very nature, churches tend to attract people in need. Sometimes those needs are things the church can’t help with directly, or the person poses a danger to other worshipers, Sherman said. 

“The police have our back constantly, because we’re just down the road from the sleep center, and it gives us an opportunity to minister to the homeless community,” Sherman said. “And a lot of times we have homeless people coming in on Sunday morning. But we’ve also had a number of confrontations when they’ve been there … people showing up Sunday morning under the influence of something and they threaten (people), and so we’ve had to call the police. They’re always watching out for us.” 

    Four young attendees at Faith & Blue show their school spirit. The event was timed to take place right before a Moses Lake football game.
  

    Faith & Blue gave the Moses Lake Police Department a chance to interact with the community it serves through food, games and just making personal connections.
  

    Players lob a football high in the air on one of the games set up at Faith & Blue Friday at Lions Field in Moses Lake.