Area law enforcement shops for Christmas presents for children of South Central Kentucky
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Shopping with law enforcement is a fun event children usually get to participate in every year, but this year, the events are looking a little different.
Meijer in Bowling Green is hosting Shop with a Trooper and Shop with a Cop this week to help benefit kids in the area.
The local law enforcement agencies participated bringing officers, deputies and troopers to the store to purchase thousands of dollars of toys for Christmas.
Usually, kids come along for the purchase with the officials but this year, because of the pandemic, they were not allowed to shop along side law enforcement.
“We’ve gotten a wish list from the Boy’s and Girl’s Club, a huge list of items. We’ve got basketballs, soccer balls, footballs, Barbie dolls, baby dolls, crayons. We’ve got every toy you can imagine and we’ve darn near emptied this place out,” said Robert Perry, the President of the Fraternal Order of Police in Bowling Green.
The goal of the two annual programs is to allow the community to spend time with officers in a more personal manner.
“As the police, when we show up to a scene, it’s a bad day. Either you’re a victim of a crime, or you’re a suspect of a crime and we are investigating you. Regardless, not a good day for you. So the kids see this and they get a bad impression. So what we want is we want to show the community, it doesn’t always have to be a bad day when we’re out. When people see us out and about, we want them to wave, we want them to say hi, we want to talk to the community,” said Perry.
The change was a disappointment for some, but it had some perks too, according to Kentucky State Trooper Daniel Priddy.
“They are going to be able to open these presents up and they are going to be surprised because they don’t know what they are going to get this year. They didn’t actually pick the toys out. They gave us a list kind of like most kids do for Santa Claus, like they write a letter to Santa Claus telling him all the things they want. We are going to pick some of the things off the list, some items, and they are going to be able to be surprised this year. So, with the obstacles comes a different type of a reward,” said Priddy.
The items purchased by the Fraternal Order of Police were donated to the Boys and Girls Club, while the Shop with a Trooper items were given to individual children in the district who were registered through the program.
