Chicks & Cocktails For Cops Fundraiser Supports Police and Neighborhoods
Alexandria, VA – The name of an annual event, Chicks & Cocktails For Cops, sounds like word play or a fun alliteration, but the fundraiser’s mission is positively serious.
Cathy Puskar, who hosted the 2025 fundraiser in her Alexandria home on Sept. 16, along with other members of the Alexandria Police Foundation board of directors, credited the social gathering as a key source of funding to keep up the health and welfare of the canine pack (including bulletproof canine vests). The event also supports the city’s National Night Out events held the first Tuesday of August, Shop with a Cop, a summer camp experience in the Northern Neck, and numerous community and police activities intended to build essential connections with people and cops. An apt way to express the event’s goal is “Prevention Versus Intervention.”
Charlotte Hall, Executive Director Stephanie Bibighaus, Board Members Pat Miller and Janet Barnett, Sergeant Kyle Russell, Mayor Alyia Gaskins and Assistant Police Chief (Acting Chief) Tina Laguna at the fundraiser to benefit the Alexandria Police Foundation. Chicks and Cocktails for Cops is an annual event at the home of Cathy Puskar. The funds raised go to fund Police Department activities not covered by the City’s annual budget, such as those of the canine unit, protective vests and medical care for retired service dogs. (All photos by Lucelle O’Flaherty)
“We find that the better the relationship between our officers and the more our officers are out in the community, getting to know both adults and children, the better chance we have of having a safe and healthy community,” said Puskar, an emeritus APF board member who has hosted the event in recent years.
Due to rain, the canine recipients invited to the event were unable to appear and enjoy the generous hospitality among those attending. However, police officers attending the event thanked the 60 or so attendees for their interest and contributions to the funding that helps fellow officers promote critically important community opportunities.
Alexandria Police Department’s highest-ranking woman, Assistant Chief Tina Laguna, who leads the Administrative & Technology Bureau and joined APD in 2023, greeted the APF supporters at Puskar’s home. Laguna, who is the highest-ranking African American woman in the history of the APD, said that in her two years with APD, she has been impressed with the intentionality of community outreach.
“I will tell you that I came from another jurisdiction…and the community support that I have felt just in my two years here in Alexandria far surpasses” other places, she noted. “And that is so important. We see so many events going on nationwide, and sometimes the police are the ones that people blame whether it’s them or not. I see the exact opposite here. I see the community coming together. I can’t go anywhere here in the city and someone not come up to me smiling saying hello,” Laguna shared.
“That sort of community interaction is what the APF is about,” commented Mayor Alyia Gaskins, who also welcomed the supporters. “I think events like this and the work the Foundation does is really important to building connections,” Gaskins continued. “It also reminds those who serve and sacrifice for all of us how much that means to us.”
The Former Vice Mayor and current Delegate for VA 5th District, Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, said, “This group in particular—and others like it—are really important to the community because they bring neighbors together to support causes that make our community a better place for all.” Bennett-Parker said she actively supports the APF and applauded the organizers who undertake the funding for community-building with the police efforts and outreach programs.
APF Executive Director Stephanie Bibighaus said that to help make the APF fundraiser a successful and welcoming event, Puskar and other board members Charlotte Hall, Pat Miller, and Deborah Tompkins Johnson put in many hours of hard work on behalf of the entire Alexandria community. Hall and Miller solicited food donations for the Cocktails and Cops gathering from a large number of Alexandria restaurants and caterers that were predominantly female owed.
Among the suppliers of appetizers and tasty nibbles were Bittersweet Catering, Cheesetique, DRP, Del Ray Café, Hank’s Pasta Bar, High-Fi Tex-Mex BBQ, Hill Bakery, Jula’s on the Potomac, Mindy’s Catering, Piece Out, Rolling Sloanes, and Sweet Fire Donna’s. Two of the restaurant contributors—Margaret Ticer Janowsky (owner of Del Ray Café) and Christine Ponzi (owner of Piece Out/St. Elmo’s)—and florist Royce E. Cohen of Royce’s Flowers also attended the event and supplied arrangements for the event.
