Bringing gift of hope-Volunteers help children during Shop With A Cop

Capt. Jeremiah Baxter and Zachariah make the dash to the toy department as they participate in this year's Shop With A Cop event.

For more than 20 years, the Shop With a Cop event in Mountain Home has brought holiday joy to area children and their families who have hit hard times.

On Saturday, the tradition continued as it brought Christmas cheer to Mountain Home residents who are financially strapped.

Nearly 300 children, chaperones and volunteers started the day with breakfast at the Mountain Home Elks Lodge followed by Christmas carols led by local music teacher Kendra Schroeder. The sounds of children singing led Santa and Mrs. Claus to join them at the Elks Lodge.

Airman 1st Class Dylan Beard carries William on his shoulder for a bird's eye view of the toy department as the youngster worked to complete his Christmas list.

The yuletide couple hugged and talked to kids before leading the procession of fire trucks, police cars and other vehicles to the local Walmart for the annual shopping spree.

The program is meant for the children to buy what they want for Christmas but the large majority of them buy for family members, said Police Cpl. Stan Winings and Shop With A Cop committee chairperson Mary Morin.

"Chaperones have to remind them (the children) to shop for themselves," said Morin, who said that the youngsters will typically shop for their families while not worrying about themselves.

Reserve officer Mindy Webb joins Katlyn and Melanie as they talk about toys and gifts for family members over breakfast.

The event was originally established by K-mart in 1996 starting with about 20 children. When Mountain Home lost K-Mart, Winings and former Police Sgt. Rick Viola took up the mission and allowed it to grow into a celebration that has helped hundreds of children each season.

Two decades later, Shop With a Cop now supports 125 kids and their families and has turned into a committee-run non-profit organization. Preparation for the day takes nearly year-round planning and a community effort for everything from grants and donations to volunteers.

"We just kept expanding and needed more and more room," Winings said.

Firefighter Chuck Garvey helps Robert out of one of the department's trucks as they prepare for the shopping spree at the local Wal-Mart.

When it started 20 years ago, organizers gathered the entire group at McDonald's for breakfast. The program's growth forced them to move to West Elementary School, and when they ran out of space there, they moved to Mountain Home Junior High.

That space only lasted two years before they had to find someplace bigger. The Elks Lodge stepped up and volunteered their building for the event ever since.

McDonald's still supplies breakfast, splitting the cost with the Shop With a Cop organization and feeds all 300 kids and volunteers. After breakfast, the children are loaded in official police cars, fire trucks and busses.

With the day's shopping complete, a team of volunteers helped wrap each gift.

In addition, the Caldwell Transportation Company donated additional bus transportation, and its drivers donated their time to chauffeur kids from the Elks Lodge to Wal-Mart.

Children eligible to participate in Shop With a Cop are determined well in advance. The committee starts by collecting names of eligible kids and families from various organizations around town and finding volunteers to pair them up with.

To make things run smooth, the committee relies heavily on chaperones representing the city police and fire departments, the county sheriff's office, Idaho State Police, Bureau of Land Management, county search and rescue in addition to airmen stationed at Mountain Home Air Force Base.

"We don't have enough officers to take all the kids, so I rely heavily on the military members," Winings said. Members of the 366th Security Forces Squadron and other units on base have always come through for the Shop With a Cop event and have become valued volunteers to make the event a success.

Nearly 60 airmen from the base were confirmed to be volunteers that day although more will often show up that morning, said Airman 1st Class Alisha Henzler, who helped organize this year's volunteers.

"When kids see a cop or military member, they don't usually think 'yeah,' " Henzler said. These kids, however, were very excited to see them and get paired up with a chaperone.

"I know my friends, especially in the (security forces) squadron, love doing Shop With a Cop" because they get a chance to share some Christmas cheer, Henzler said.

The event brings out the Christmas spirit in kids and adults alike. Over the years, there were times the children exceeded their budgeted gift card amount, with the volunteers stepping up to help.

"We have chaperones every year who dig in their own pockets," Morin said, although it's not something that's encouraged by the event committee.

Sheriff-elect Mike Hollingshed was not able to be an official chaperone because he won't be back in uniform until January, but that didn't stop him from helping out. He spent the day standing at the registers waiting for kids who went over their gift card amount.

His intention was to personally cover any overages but was stopped many times by the chaperones, who were adamant that they would cover the additional amount.

After shopping and checking out, the children got all their gifts wrapped by volunteers from Pioneer Federal Credit Union and Walmart. At the conclusion of their shopping day, they were treated to snacks and drinks before a personal meeting with Santa, who presented them with an additional Christmas present.

This year, the participants were also sent home with a gift card for groceries from Albertsons.