Shop With A Cop®
“Legos. I want Legos. And, my mom wants a bracelet.” That’s the type of conversation that occurs every year on a Saturday morning in December, between kids and cops at our annual Shop With A Cop® event.
There, in the warehouse area of Wal-Mart at Admiral and Memorial, more than 30 kids from the Rotary Club of Tulsa's Partners In Education school, Celia Clinton Elementary, are paired with Rotarians and police officers to map out a plan for shopping. While the police officers and children shop for their families, Rotarians assist with the shopping process.
Funded by the Tulsa Fraternal Order of Police and the Rotary Club of Tulsa, the goal of the program is to create a new relationship between children and police. Working together, the children can see the police officers as real people and someone to go to for help. It also creates a Christmas for families who do not have money to buy gifts.
After the shopping is complete, student volunteers from the University of Tulsa help wrap the gifts. And then, by the time lunch is over, smiling kids are everywhere, seen dragging huge shopping bags full of goodies to meet their eager parents.
Shop With A Cop® — it's an event every Rotarian will want to experience!
