YPD donate 3,689 gallons of water to Crossroads Missions

YUMA, Ariz. (KYMA, KECY) - A friendly competition within the Yuma Police Department (YPD) is bringing the community more H2O in these hot temperatures.

YPD held a contest between units to see who could purchase the most bottled water, and it was all with their own money.

They collected a whopping 3,689 gallons of water that will benefit the Crossroads Mission and Disabled American Veterans.

Public Safety Technician for YPD, Xenia Castellanos came up with the friendly competition as a way to combat the amount of heat-related man-down calls the agency gets.

The traffic unit of the department won first place with the most donations within this two-week period.

"Weekly, I would send out updates as to how the units were doing, and literally, once they saw one was beating the other, they were like, 'oh, heck no, so we're going to one-up them,' and they would bring in more the next week,"  

Dispatch came in second place with the number of donations. Records came in third.

They had so much water the extras had to go to Crossroad Mission's second location at the thrift shop.

This amount of water will only last about a month and a half, so they are still asking the community to pitch in.

The Yuma County Sheriff's Office got wind of the competition and now they started their own to beat YPD.