By Town Crier Staff Report

An outpouring of community support for victims of the terrorist attacks in New York City Sept. 11 raised more than $5,400 toward the Los Altos Peace Officer’s Association Disaster Relief Fund within days after police publicly announced the creation of the relief fund to help assist the families of police officers, firefighters and other community members killed or injured during the collapse of New York’s World Trade Center.

One Los Altos volunteer police reserve officer donated $600, her entire year’s salary, to the fund.

Barbara Gilmore told police she hoped her small effort would help ease some of the families’ burdens.

“In the aftermath of the terrrorist attacks, all Americans are experiencing varying amounts of disbelief, grief, fear and anger. Nobody is unaffected,” she wrote in a letter to police. “Our world has drastically changed. Positive productive efforts are a necessary step in our healing, as individuals and as a nation.”

Officer John Korges, who helped launch the relief fund, said the fund sprouted from his own need to respond to this month’s events.

He planned to donate money to a similar fund in the Alameda Police Department when he and Sgt. Dennis Loucks decided to give other Los Altos residents the opportunity to help last week’s victims through legitimate, non-profit organizations.

Korges said the association will turn over 100 percent of the fund’s donations to each organization.

He said the association is planning to deliver the donations personally to the New York victims.

Los Altos police will send relief funds as a community donation from Los Altos to one of the following organizations: The New York Police Survivors Fund, the International Association of Firefighters-New York Firefighters 9-11 Relief Fund and the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.

All contributions may be sent to the Los Altos Peace Officer’s Association Disaster Relief Fund, P.O. Box 1311, Los Altos, 94023.

Donors may specify to which organization they wish their contribution sent, or police will divide contributions among the organizations.

The association plans to publish a list of donors in upcoming weeks. For more information, call Officer John Korges or Sgt. Dennis Loucks at the Los Altos Police Department at 948-8223.