Southwire partnered with the Cleburne County Sheriff’s Office to donate more than $3,000 in support of Project Lifesaver, an international non-profit organization.

Founded in 1998, Project Lifesaver provides law enforcement officers with public safety programs to quickly locate individuals with cognitive disorders. The overall goal of Project Lifesaver is to provide community leaders with the technology to bring loved ones home.

The organization does so by providing the officers with receivers that connect to bracelets worn by individuals with cognitive diseases. When these individuals leave their homes, the bracelets alert the receivers, allowing the officers to find the person quickly and minimizes the chance of injury.

Dennis Green, sheriff at Cleburne County, said in his donation request that four deputies in their office had recently been certified by Project Lifesaver through the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) Aviation Unit. At the time of the request, the Sheriff’s Office only had one receiver for the four deputies to share, so they asked Southwire to donate the amount of money needed for three additional receivers to equip all certified deputies’ vehicles.

According to Joseph Freeman, chief deputy at Cleburne County, the partnership with their facility and Project Lifesaver stemmed from a tragic situation that occurred over the summer. A senior citizen with a cognitive disease left his home on foot, and because the authorities did not know his location, he was found deceased several hours later.

“That unfortunate situation made us recognize the need for a partnership with Project Lifesaver,” Freeman said. “If we had known his location, we would have been able to get there faster and potentially save his life.”

Since the Cleburne County Sheriff’s Office implemented the Project Lifesaver receivers and bracelets in September, they have already seen the benefit. On Oct. 2, the office received a 911 call that an individual with a Project Lifesaver wristband was walking down the road. Right away, on-call deputies were able to retrieve a radio signal for his location and found him within 30 minutes.

“This Southwire donation is going to make our process of finding and saving these individuals much easier,” said Freeman. “We are very grateful that Southwire is offering to help both our department and our community.”