Don Klinge, a school resource officer at Jordahl Elementary School in Fountain, thinks of the students as part of his extended family.

“I have 563 grandkids,” said Klinge, a Fountain police corporal who has been a familiar, smiling face at Jordahl for seven years.

“You don’t want to come into Jordahl and mess with one of my grandkids. That’s not going to work out well for you.”

Klinge’s dedication to the youngsters in his charge has not gone unnoticed. On Tuesday, he was recognized as an Ent Credit Union Community Advocate and presented with a $10,000 check.

“I’m in shock at the amount,” Klinge said. “This is going to go so far toward helping my kids who wouldn’t otherwise have a Christmas.”

Klinge is the coordinator of Operation Blue Santa, an annual Christmas gift drive spearheaded by Fountain’s police and fire departments in an effort to grant holiday wishes to hundreds of local kids and their families. Last year, the operation served more than 600 Fountain Valley kids, the officer said.

“It’s an honor to be recognized, but it’s not just me doing the work,” he said. “It’s truly a community thing. I’m just the face of it.”

Klinge, a former deputy with the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, helped launch the program in 2015, hoping to expand on his department’s holiday outreach efforts. He began by approaching all the businesses he could think of, including insurance companies, tattoo parlors, chiropractors, florists — anyone who might be interested in helping local kids have a merry Christmas.

“It’s sort of grown from there,” Klinge said.

To Klinge — “Officer Don” to the Jordahl youngsters — building relationships with the students is a crucial component of his job. It’s important, he said, for kids to see him as more than just a law enforcement officer.

“My first conversation with a student should not be when I’m putting them in handcuffs,” he said. “If that’s the case, we’ve missed the mark. We can have a positive impact on kids before it comes to that.”

Child safety doesn’t end when school lets out, according to Klinge. After school hours, he often drives around to local parks and neighborhoods, checking on students, playing basketball with them, or ordering pizza.

“They don’t stop being my grandkids when they leave the building,” he said.

On Tuesday, Klinge’s wife, Leisa, lured him to the Ent headquarters building in northeast Colorado Springs under false pretenses in order to surprise him. But the career police officer had a feeling something else was going on.

“She told my entire chain of command about it. Everybody knew but me,” he said. “But I thought something was up because my boss was way too eager to let me off work.”

The credit union plans to recognize three additional Community Advocates in the coming days, officials said. Richard Fierro and Thomas James, who disarmed the Club Q assailant in November 2022, were the inaugural recipients of the award.

“I’m really grateful to Ent Credit Union for recognizing me with this award,” Klinge said. “It’s going to help a lot of kids have a good Christmas this year.”