Five days after retiring from the Long Beach Police Department’s Senior Police Partner Program, to which she had served 10 years, Rita Jennings passed away.
Jennings had developed a quarterly newsletter for the program that was distributed to all the senior centers in Long Beach. “She worked hard to continuously improve the design and layout of the newsletter and ensured that it contained interesting and valuable safety information,” said Karen Owens, personnel administrator who oversees the department’s volunteer program.
“Rita was extremely organized,” Owens said. “She also related well with the clients and was very in-depth and thorough when trying to help people.”
Jennings had joined the program Sept. 15, 2000 and graduated from Senior Police Partners Class Number 3 the next month. Each graduate was required to complete a 53-hour block of training that included Cultural Awareness, Fraud/Bunco, Elder Abuse, County Mental Health Services, as well as other subjects that would benefit the seniors in the local community.
According to Owens, Jennings was a tremendous asset to the Senior Police Partner Program. In honor of her service to the department and the community, the program’s participants will encase her badge in Lucite as a gift to her husband, Sheldon.
Jennings’s funeral service took place last Monday at the Church of Our Father’s at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cypress.
