Sara Froeming

Sara Froeming is affectionately known as “the cookie lady” by the officers of the Appleton Police Department (APD) where she has been a volunteer since 1996. She was the first Northside Cop Shop volunteer, setting a standard of excellence for other volunteers to follow.

She has worn many hats for the Appleton community. While serving as a volunteer with the police department, Froeming has worked the entire week of Police Week annually, manned the gunlock giveaway station, worked in the reception area for the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Conference and created a database for the officers to use. Froeming has also developed their first VIPS newsletter, created crime maps for officers to use, dressed in the “redman” dummy suit for officer training and role-played for the hiring process.

In addition, Froeming spent 33 hours at the APD one week while on vacation. During this time, she created floatation ropes for Officer John DeLong and Capt. Julie Bahr, inserted pictures into the APD history document, put Green Bay Packers card sets together for the officers to give to kids, assisted with recovered stolen property with Det. Dan Woodkey, assisted the Community Engagement office with Christmas Crusade and helped to organize VIP brochure & policy manual. She also manned the Northside Cop Shop reception desk, helped with an open house, assisted with the Young Citizens Police Academy, met with HR on VIP policy manual and assisted with the Senior Safety Fair.

Froeming continues to make community survey calls and updates the Neighborhood Watch database. She also completes monthly calls to the 186 Neighborhood Watch Captains, attends all Neighborhood Watch start up meetings and is the SpeedWatch program road volunteer & communication coordinator. Because of her dedication, vast skills, dependability and her friendship, Froeming was awarded the Civilian Community Service Award on May 7th, 2003, from Mayor Timothy Hanna as approved by the Chief of Police Richard Myers. She was not only the lone volunteer to receive this award, but the only VIPS volunteer to ever be nominated.

Froeming has given the city of Appleton more than 2800 hours of service. This calculates to a taxpayer’s savings of nearly $50,000. She is a self-supporting, 39-year young woman who has fully committed herself to the agency. After working a full day on Mondays, she faithfully comes to the APD to volunteer 4 hours. She does the same on alternating Tuesdays and again, at the Cop Shop on Thursdays. An occasional Sunday at the Cop Shop is not out of the question for her either. As another gift, she prepares special treats to share either at the Cop Shop or at the main station, thus, the moniker “cookie lady.” At least one week, if not more, of her yearly vacation is given to the APD. Despite overcoming multiple surgeries and caring for her parents, Froeming is always ready when duty calls.