BULLHEAD CITY — The police departments from the three largest cities in Mohave County have held Shop with a Cop events. In each community, it started very early Saturday morning with up to 115 youngsters selected to participate.
Shop with a Cop is commonplace throughout the United States. Of the three simultaneous events in the county, Bullhead City was selected this year to be covered. Over one hundred kids were fed breakfast at the Bullhead Elks Lodge at 5:30 in the morning. The lodge 2408 Exaulted Leader Walt Honse and a large crop of volunteers greeted the selected youngsters as Walt commented on the gathering.
“It’s a great event. We enjoy it. If you take a look at the kids that are in the Lodge today, they are laughing and having a great time. They are going to have a great day!”
Shop with a Cop President Colbey Probst talks about what happens next.
“We take’em and we load’em up into our patrol vehicles. They get to play with our lights, our sirens and then we give’em the radio, they’re talking to our dispatchers and then we do a “ginormous” parade all the way up to Walmart. Once they’re at Walmart, they’re greeted by our BLUE Santa, so it’s not the normal Santa Claus, he’s wearing a BLUE outfit. Then the children go off with an officer, and they get to spend $150 on whatever they want.”
Parents waited in the garden area of the Bullhead WalMart store as the children went in escorted only by Bullhead City Peace Officers. Several escorting police officers told me that many of the children select food stuffs and gifts for their families rather than just grabbing only things for themselves.
This event is a community-wide operation. In addition to the volunteer officers, there’s a wide range of community participants including Alfonso Zamudio-Osuna, a native of Bullhead, who traveled in from Flagstaff with his cupcake specialties.
“My life goal is to create memorable experiences and what I had in my background was making cupcakes, so I started making cupcakes about this year’s going to be my 11th year doing the cupcakes. Companies that I’ve worked for have supported me each year.”
Those cupcakes are handed out free along with a goodie filled backpack, and a reading book with the child’s name pasted into their selected book. All that happened before the kids began to actually shop. When the children returned to the garden area entrance, there was a volunteer staffed gift wrapping station.
Walmart provides a generous grant to the Shop with a Cop foundation and employees to set up the garden area as a welcoming arena. If the number of volunteers and community groups were individually named in this article, it would be as heavy as a typical New York Times Sunday edition. Needless to say, the numerous civic and community groups with their financial support and volunteers made it a very special day in Havasu, Kingman, and Bullhead.
