Deputies hand out cash, not tickets, for the holidays

— -- California deputies on Wednesday decided to pull over some residents and hand out something wanted for a change: cold, hard cash.

Deputies with the Orange County Sheriff's Department drove around the town of San Clemente, giving away $100 bills.

"We've got two of our finest deputies in the city to locate those folks and give them some money to make Christmas a little easier," Lt. Michael Peters, OCSD's police chief in San Clemente, told ABC station KABC.

This is their third year doing this, all thanks to an anonymous donor who gave over $18,000 to the department, with the one requirement that the cash be distributed to people who are in need.

"It's unbelievable, I don't know what to say," Bill Hill, one of the drivers who was pulled over, said to KABC.

The giving wasn't completely random. Some of the recipients were people the deputies have encountered throughout the year, including a mother of two who works multiple jobs, a full-time college student who's working hard to pay for her education, a single mother of five and a second-grader who's having difficulty at home.

"I've never had anything like this happen to me before so it's just ... I'm still having a hard time breathing," Dima Rafoul, the college student, told KABC.

For the deputies, it was a change to be able to give back to the community they work so hard to serve.