Athens Police Chief Floyd Johnson and department employee Kathy Cothren fill a shopping cart with gifts to be given to children citywide Christmas day.

There will be sort of a second Santa delivery Christmas Day in Athens.

Athens police officers will be handing out Christmas presents to children they randomly encounter Sunday afternoon throughout the city.

“When officers see a child out playing on Sunday, they can stop and give them a gift,” Police Chief Floyd Johnson said.

The gift-giving effort is the Police Department’s way of building a relationship with children in the community.

“A lot of kids don’t get a lot for Christmas, so maybe this will add joy to their holiday knowing the police thought of them and stopped to give them a football or basketball or baby doll,” said Lt. Anthony Pressnell.

Johnson and Pressnell — along with nine other police officers, investigators and employees — shopped for and purchased the presents from Wal-Mart earlier this week.

Other shoppers included Capt. Trevor Harris, Lt. Chris Slaton, Sgt. Johnny Campbell, Officers Joe McClanahan and Jonathan Caldwell; and Police Department employees Cindy Pugh, Jordan Porter, Callie Johnson and Kathy Cothren.

The group selected gifts that might appeal to boys and girls ages 5 through 12.

“This is our way to give back to the community that has supported us during the year,” Pressnell said. “Reaching out to kids is a great way to build a good relationship between us and them because they are the future citizens.”

The shopping trip was paid for with about $400 raised by Behind the Badge, the chief said. The organization was formed in Athens to help police officers and to make a positive impact on the citizens of Athens and Limestone County.

What time, blue Santa?

Second-shift officers, who begin work at 2 p.m. Sunday, were chosen to hand out the gifts. Officials thought that would give families time to open gifts in the morning and eat lunch. They thought children would be more likely to be playing outdoors in the afternoon so officers might see them and offer a gift.

The chief said his officers could either hand out the unwrapped gifts or let the children select their own from the police cruiser.

“We didn’t wrap them, that way there would be no chance of giving a girl gift to a boy and vice versa,” Johnson said.

The Police Department gave away footballs, beach balls and Frisbee’s this past summer in a similar relationship-building effort.

Pressnell said those gifts may have been more male-oriented, so the Christmas shoppers wanted to make sure this effort appealed equally to girls and boys.