Evanstonian Alden Cohen receives 2006 TRIAD Senior Volunteer Award
On December 11, 2006, Evanston Interim Police Chief Dennis L. Nilsson presented Department volunteer Alden Cohen with the 2006 TRIAD Evanston Senior Volunteer Award for his service to the Evanston Police Department.
Since his graduation from the Department’s Citizen Police Academy, where he gave the class representative’s address, Alden has become an indispensable part of the Evanston Police family and is the embodiment of the expression, “to jump in with both feet.”
Alden, 72, has a lifelong commitment to public service. He began volunteering with the American Red Cross in 1952 and has served chapters in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin, receiving numerous awards from the Red Cross, most recently, the 2005 Outstanding Outreach Volunteer Instructor Award.
He served his country in the US Army Intelligence from 1957-1959 and has been a teacher of English to speakers of other languages for many years.
Currently, Alden serves on the US Selective Service Board, is a National Safety Council Emergency Care and an Illinois Emergency Management Instructor.
After graduation from the CPA in May of 2004, Alden trained as a member of Evanston’s Community Emergency Response Team. CERT, made up entirely of select Citizen Police Academy graduates specially trained in emergency situations who also help out at the 4th of July celebration, CommUnity Picnic, neighborhood safety patrols on Halloween and with traffic and crowd control at city events.
Time and again, Alden has stepped up to the plate. Alden has used his superior photographic skills for the Department’s benefit by taking the class photos of Citizen Police Academy classes and other Department functions.
When Senior Crime Specialist Amanda Jones mentioned that she was seeking ways of translating emergency medical materials into Russian for some of Evanston’s senior citizens, Alden took the project to his Russian students who completed the translation in record time.
As part of the Evanston Police Department’s ongoing procedures as an accredited police department by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Alden volunteered as an assistant to the Property Officers, who log evidence, catalogue property, ready subpoenas, take photographs and maintain Property records. In 2005 alone he logged over 1,000 hours as the Property Room volunteer and showed no signs of slowing down in 2006.
His commitment to public service, his superior technical skills, his problem solving mentality and astonishing energy have benefited service organizations for decades past and the Evanston Police Department is proud to be the volunteer home to this amazing individual.