NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WVEC) -- She's Newport News' '"Top Cop."
Each year the Greater Hampton Roads Regional Crime Lines honor local law enforcement officers who help make their communities a better place to live and work.
MPO Melissa Gretsinger with the Newport News Police Department was recognized back on October 22nd. Gretsinger is a School Resource Officer at Crittenden Middle School.
“It's not work to me,” Gretsinger says. “It's honest to God just doing what you should do.”
Since being a SRO, Gretsinger has done much in and out of the school.
As a school resource officer, MPO Gretsinger is also keenly aware there are many students who live in households where food supplies are limited, and as a result, many students come to school hungry. Through her own initiative, MPO Gretsinger provides lunch for students when they do not have money in their lunch account.
MPO Gretsinger has helped a number of families, including one family by taking in two children whose father and mother were incarcerated. When the mother, who was serving weekends in jail, was locked up, the children would stay with her family and were treated as if they were her own children.
MPO Gretsinger is also very active on social media.
She runs the school's ‘SRO’ twitter page with what her students are doing each and every day.
“I go through my day honestly thinking if this was my kid and they had a sad look what would I say,” Gretsinger says. “I would say, 'Okay, what's going on? Talk to me.'”