Selena Thier gives back to the community on her birthday each year. This year, she chose to help fallen officers in Fort Myers.
Greg and Julie Thier never thought they'd have a little girl.
They already had four boys, and figured they were all done having children.
"But you wanted one," 10-year-old Selena Thier said with a smile up at Julie Thier, her mom, as she sat on the couch of their Cape Coral home Thursday.
"That's right, we waited for you," Julie Thier said.
Selena had just returned home from a day of fourth grade at Caloosa Elementary School and soon would get ready to go to her dojo. She's a purple belt in karate, Julie Thier said.
"She's our little miracle," Greg Thier said. "I went for a ride with a friend of mine one night, and she needed someplace to stay. We brought her home and five months later, we adopted her."
That was May 10, 2010. They call it her "gotcha" day, and it's the day she celebrates each year as a birthday.
For her actual day of birth in October? She chooses to donate back to the community.
This year, she raised money for the Fort Myers Police Department's Fallen Officer Foundation. She set up a table at the Oct. 13 Cops and Joggers run, and collected money at a birthday party held at the Skatium indoor skating center in Fort Myers. Her parents helped her establish a GoFundMe page, which raised $3,077.08 for fallen officers' families.
On Monday, she presented the oversized check to Lt. Jeffrey Bernice, who represents the foundation.
Selena started getting involved with law enforcement agencies and fire departments throughout Southwest Florida when her brother Josh Peterson became a Lee County sheriff's deputy about four years ago. Since then, she's formed bonds with the officers, deputies and firefighters at multiple agencies, participating in events and often stopping by to visit and show her appreciation.
She has a four-inch thick scrapbook full of photos, police coins, pins, patches, stickers, and cards to show for it.
Each year, Selena crafts hundreds of Christmas and holiday cards to distribute to the departments. Sometimes, she'll bake cookies or bring them pins while they're out on the road. She puts together toy baskets for officers to take to "bad calls" where kids involved may be stressed or scared, such as car accidents, fires, or domestic situations.
And she has no plans to stop anytime soon. Selena loves animals and wants to be a vet when she grows up, but doesn't want to work on just any animals. She wants to heal K-9 officers.
She does it all to let law enforcement and firefighters know how much she appreciates them.
And they do the same for her. She's tucked some of their tokens of appreciation into the pages of her scrapbook: A "Do the Right Thing" award from one officer here, a pin, patch, coin, or photo from another one there.
She's pasted a photo of her with fallen officer Adam Jobbers-Miller and other officers to the board she made to display at her table when she raised money at Cops and Joggers. She had met him through one of her many visits to the Fort Myers Police Department office and participation in law enforcement events.
She was inspired to give back to the Fallen Officer Foundation when she heard about officers who had been shot or hurt on the job, including Jobbers-Miller.
A favorite moment of hers: visiting the sheriff's office and reciting prayer cards to deputies. One of them was Deputy Wilfred Rivera, and it was 45 minutes before he was stabbed on a call in Bokeelia. The fillet knife didn't pierce through his vest and only bruised his chest above his heart.
Selena said she hopes the money she raised can help keep other officers safe.
"My brother works out on the road, and I wanted to keep him safe and everybody else that was with him safe," she said.