by Cori Hilsgen
Sophina Lindquist’s generous heart continues to spread the love she feels for firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians, paramedics, flight medical crews, dispatch operators and others.
Lindquist, 8, St. Cloud, has become well-known by many members of local and other area stations through her donations of cookies and her prayer lists.
Lindquist’s mother, Connie Lindquist, said it has been a way of life for their family to pray for these people. They pray when they see lights and/or hear sirens. They also prayed for firefighters and other people who struggled after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C. and in the sky above Pennsylvania.
In 2014, when an increased number of police officers were getting shot, Connie made cookies and had intended to bring them, still hot from the oven, to their local police station. Quickly realizing the station was not open on a Sunday, they brought the cookies next door to fire department number one in St. Cloud.
Connie realized her home-schooled daughters, who were 14 and 15 at the time, didn’t really know or remember much about the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, because of their age.
They spent Sept. 11, 2014 reviewing news coverage of the event and decided they wanted to do something for the personnel who work so hard to protect and serve.
After asking about which fire district their home is located in, the Lindquists learned their family’s street is divided by two different departments, station five and station one.
Since they had previously delivered cookies to station one the month before, they chose to bring some to station five.
After also calling ahead to pick up and bring a pizza order to station five, they were invited to share a meal at the fire house. Connie said, during the meal, they learned so much about what the firefighters experience.
That was the beginning of Sophina’s wanting to share cookies and the love she feels for firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians, paramedics, flight medical crews, dispatch operators and others.
Sophina, who has Down syndrome, fell head-over-heels in love with the public servants she met. If she could, she would visit them every day.
After delivering cookies to the St. Cloud stations, the Lindquist family began delivering them to volunteer departments. The first volunteer fire station for which the family baked cookies was the Sauk Rapids Fire Department.
The family continues to bake and deliver cookies to many police and fire departments.
Sophina now has a prayer list filled with more than 700 names of people she prays for at bedtime. She has met about 90 percent of the men and women she prays for.
Each year on her birthday, she requests to bring cookies to various locations of the people she prays for. She has various uniforms/outfits and dresses according to which department she brings the cookies to.
Her sister, Catherine (Catia), helps make the dozens and dozens of cookies Sophina delivers. Her mother and another sister, Victoria (Vica), accompany Sophina when she visits her various locations.
Sophina has become quite a celebrity. The St. Joseph and St. Stephen fire departments gave her various gifts. St. Joseph firefighters invited her to accompany them on a controlled burn. St. Stephen firefighters invited her to the Minnesota Fire Chief Convention Oct. 29, 2015 where she was introduced as the “cutest Fire Chief” the Dallas, Texas speaker had ever seen. Sophina shook hands with every person present and left her mother to hand out more than 300 cookies.
St. Cloud Police Officer Rachel Johnson and other officers bought her a child-sized squad car and named her an honorary St. Cloud Police Officer. KEEPERS, a local supplier of public-safety equipment, gave her a St. Cloud Police Department uniform after officer Johnson told them about her.
Sophina was featured on KARE 11 Boyd Huppert’s television show in May. The family was invited to an appreciation dinner for firefighters and police officers May 18 at the River’s Edge Convention Center in St. Cloud. They were also invited May 20 to a Police Blue Line Ball in St. Paul.
Sophina was recently recognized at Summertime by George, where various bands perform concerts on Wednesday night by Lake George in St. Cloud. Her mother also sang the National Anthem at that event.
Her mother said although Sophina loves the generous gifts she has received, she doesn’t really understand why she is receiving them.
She just wants to bring cookies to the firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians, paramedics and other people she loves and prays for.
Lindquist has four sisters – Elizabeth (Liz), Alexandra (Ally), Victoria (Vica) and Catherine (Catia) – and one brother, Ethan.
Ethan, 8, also has Down Sydrome and has picked up on Sophina’s prayers. He has begun excitedly praying whenever he hears sirens and sees flashing lights. He prays for them to stay safe, for them to know what to do and for them to work together as a team.