About a month ago, the Hillsborough Police Department and Lt. Andy Simmons started a social media campaign using the hashtag #HillsboroughRocks.
After it received attention from the public, Simmons stepped up his game. He made T-shirts with the hashtag to help kids attend basketball camp.
“I wanted to do more outreach to Hillsborough through social media,” Simmons said.
The movement began when Simmons started to make videos and posted them to the Hillsborough Police Department’s Facebook page. After one of his videos, Simmons decided to say “Hillsborough Rocks” at the end of it, which got people’s attention.
Simmons responded to this and made a shirt for himself that said “#HillsboroughRocks." During one of his Facebook videos, he wore it and many people wanted one, too.
The police department has sold about 455 shirts so far, Simmons said. He said the response to the campaign has been extremely positive.
The money from shirt sales will help pay for local kids to attend the police department's annual basketball camp. He said any leftover money after the basketball camp will go toward future events, such as the department's breast cancer awareness campaign.
One supporter of this campaign is Teresa Mosser, who bought one of the T-shirts. She currently lives in Cedar Grove but said she does all of her shopping in Hillsborough.
Mosser said she bought a T-shirt to support the police department and also to advertise Hillsborough.
