Victoria Hemphill and her sons, Noah and Drew paint lines in front of houses. These lines are meant as a way to let local police officers that the people living in these homes fully support them and their efforts.
A viral campaign to show police officers support has spread to Green River.
When city resident Victoria Hemphill saw a story on Facebook about The Safe Harbor Initiative, she wanted to do the same in Green River. The initiative started in San Antonio, Texas, by Anthony Welichko. He uses Facebook as a way to urge people to go outside of their homes and spray a simple blue line on the side of the street curb to show support for police officers.
"I would like to show our local officers the support and appreciation we have for their work. My family and I have been painting small blue lines in front of homes that want to show support for our police officers in Green River and across The United States," Hemphill said. "This is a discreet line, about 1-inch wide by 4-inches long, but it is an indication to officers that the residents of the home fully support police officers."
Armed with a can of blue spray paint and a cardboard stencil she made, Hemphill started by asking if her friends wanted one. After her friends' homes were done, she made sure her Facebook friends knew about the project. Hemphill said she told people on Facebook she would paint the lines for them if they wanted one.
"I put a post that if anybody was interested I would come do it for them," she said.
To take blue-line paint orders, Hemphill set up an email account, bluelinegrpd@yahoo.com, dedicated to the project. None of the lines cost anything.
Hemphill, her husband and two sons, started painting curbs to meet the demand, which was about 100 houses. When the Facebook and social media responses seemed to dwindle, Hemphill came up with another idea.
Hemphill, asked the human resource director at Sweetwater County School District No. 2 if she could send out an email about the program to all of the employees in the district. Once she was given the go ahead, Hemphill sent out an email to all of the employees. She then received a call from the Green River High School boys basketball coach, Laurie Ivie, asking if the boys could help paint some lines for a community service project.
Hemphill and her family embraced the help.
They had another 100 lines to paint; and she was happy the basketball team volunteered to help. She said the first time, they did it as a community service project, but then the boys kept returning to paint more. Hemphill, also teacher at GRHS, said she would ask some of the boys basketball players in her class or hallway and they would ask when the next paint day was scheduled.
"They do six hours of work for me," she said. "It's just wonderful. They are dedicated young men that are helping me reach my goal of painting Green River blue, and they would love to come paint a line for you."
With the help of the basketball team, a total of 400 lines have been painted. This sounds like a lot, but Hemphill is ready to do more.
"My goal is 1,000 or we run out of houses," she said.
Hemphill said she the lines symbolized support for the GRPD officers. It is nice for officers to know that they have support in their communities.
"My husband is a cop and I know how hard he works," she said.
Hemphill said she had no idea just how hard it is on the officer and their families, until she married a police officer. She said her whole perspective of police officers changed.
Since the start of her project, Hemphill's life has changed a little.
"I don't go anywhere without a can of paint in the car," she said.
Hemphill's efforts have once again started to dwindle and she is hoping to get more requests this week. As of Saturday, she was down to only 30 lines to paint.
Those who would like a blue line painted in front of their house can email their request to bluelinegrpd@yahoo.com.
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