Police Officers- Taxpayer Funded Good Cheer?

It appears about 250 cops in the Burlington MA area all got together and piled into around 100 cop cars and drove to VA to hand deliver Christmas cards to a young child who has brain cancer. I think thats a great show of sympathy and good thoughts to make one kids Christmas wish to get a bunch of cards from cops and firefighters. But, is this an abuse of taxpayers money, since these cops used taxpayer paid for cars to drive there, without the taxpayers permission? Who gave them permission to take MA taxpayer paid for vehicles out of state, nevermind more than 3 states away? And to the people who say that it was for a good cause and i'm being mean, isnt our taxmoney already going to a good cause and thats to pay for cops to protect us and our streets and NOT act as Santa bringing christmas cards to ONE kid? I think if the cops wanted to hand deliver christmas cards to some kid who only ask for cards in the mail in the first place then they should of paid for a plane ticket to fly this kid up here. Instead it was these jackass cops who went way beyond there authority and feel they can do whatever they want.