Jason Wood and his 17-year-old son, also named Jason, were just leaving the Giant supermarket in Dover Thursday afternoon – the younger Jason works there, but they were just shopping Thursday – when a Northern York County Regional Police officer who was patrolling in the parking lot pulled up beside them.
The officer rolled down his window and told the younger Jason, “You look like a hard-working man and you could use this.” And the officer handed him an envelope and drove away.
The younger Jason opened the envelope. It contained a note titled, “A Holiday Greeting from NYCRPD.” The text of the note read, “During this holiday season, moments of kindness matter. On behalf of the Northern York County Regional Police Department, please accept this $100 as a small expression of goodwill and appreciation. You matter. You are valued. This gesture is simply our way of sharing a little holiday cheer and thanking the community we are proud to serve. We wish you peace, safety, and warmth this holiday season!”
Folded inside the note was a $100 bill.
What the police officer didn’t know is just how much the gesture meant to the family. Jessica Wood, a 38-year-old quality auditor at General Dynamics, has been off work, battling sinovial sarcoma, a rare cancer that attacks soft tissues and can spread. She was diagnosed in 2021, was treated and was cancer-free for three years. This year, the cancer returned, spreading to her lungs. She has he had radiation and chemotherapy and in January is scheduled to enter a drug trial at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” Sharon said. “It’s just $100, but with everything we’ve been going through, I just broke down. It meant a lot to us.”
How this came about starts with a $10,000 donation, in $100 bills, to the police department. Chief Dave Lash said a benefactor and friend, who wishes to remain anonymous, gave the department the cash with the directive to hand it out for the holidays. The department distributed the money to its patrol officers and instructed them to hand it to people they encounter on the job, the idea being to give the money away by the end of business Tuesday, the day before Christmas Eve.
So this weekend, it may not be a bad thing to be pulled over by a Northern Regional police officer.
Lash said, “It’s a way to give back to the community that has supported us so well.”
The department has received an outpouring of support from the community in donations and well wishes since three of its detectives – Mark Baker, Cody Becker and Isaiah Emenheiser – were killed during an ambush at a North Codorus Township farmhouse while attempting to arrested a man accused of stalking a woman on Sept. 17.
Lash said, “2025 has been a tough year in York County. This is one way for us to show our appreciation to the community that supported us.”
