By Jasz Garrett
Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – The Alaska Police Officers Association (APOA) took approximately 50 kids shopping through the annual ‘Shop with a Cop’ event on Saturday morning at Fred Meyer. The children were brought to Fred Meyer in a grand lights and sirens parade. Through the program, the kids can pick out gifts for their family members with an officer’s help.
Kirt Stage-Harvey, a detective with the Juneau Police Department (JPD) and a board member of APOA has been organizing the event for the past four years and volunteered for the past nine. He said he looks forward to it every Christmas and it wouldn’t be possible without the community’s support.
The program is sponsored by the Capital City Chapter of the APOA and community donations.
“We have some incredibly generous community supporters. The Airport Mini Mall and apartments is very generous, the Lemon Creek Inmate Council donated a very generous amount to us too,” he said. “And we have a bunch of donors throughout different businesses in Juneau, and Fred Meyer of course, is an incredible partner. They give us a 20% discount on everything. They gave us snacks and drinks.”
Usually, the budget is around $200 for an officer to spend on a kid who has been nominated as well as gifts for their family. But this year, thanks to all of the funding, they were able to budget for $250.
“It’s all within means, it’s all up to the discretion of the officer,” Stage-Harvey said. “We have a lot of families nominated instead of just single kids. We assigned those to groups, like Lemon Creek Correctional Officers have a family of four, and then they have a family of three. They coordinate together to shop for that whole family.”
The children shopping don’t know that officers secretly pick out gifts for them too. Volunteer ‘elves’ assist the officers with finding out what the kids might want.
After all of the gifts are picked out and the kids dropped off back at home, volunteers wrap the gifts back at the police station. They’ll be dropped off closer to Christmas, and the surprise gifts will be labeled from Santa Claus.
Santa Claus (Bruce Bowler) is an APOA board member and has been involved since the start.
Mrs. Claus (Judy Bowler) also loves to spread the holiday cheer. They also have an unexpected helper, the Grinch (Marie Ahrens), the Vice President, and the secretary of Juneau Citizen Patrol.
“It’s just so much fun, seeing all the kids and all the smiles, for the kids who really need it,” Bowler said.
Stage-Harvey said entire families being nominated instead of a single child has been more common than it was in the past.
Nominations are sent in every November for children who experience financial difficulty, housing or food insecurity, behavioral or mental health issues, or a traumatic experience in their lives. Some kids may have seen a family member arrested or been exposed to a domestic situation or drug abuse.
“What we really love is for schools to give us nominations, because they have a really good finger on the pulse of what kids are dealing with,” Stage-Harvey said. “So, we really rank their nominations higher. We get nominations from families themselves and within the community. We get nominations from the service agencies which we rank high. And then, if an officer has an interaction with a family for some reason, it’s usually not in a good way. So, if a kid like that gets nominated, we want to help provide a more positive law enforcement experience.”
He said the entire goal of the program is to create a positive relationship between the child and law enforcement.
JPD Sergeant Shawn Phelps has been participating in ‘Shop with a Cop’ for about 14 or 15 years. He has seen the impact it has on Juneau’s community.
“I do see kids that I have helped in the past before and they smile when they see me, and they remember me. And they remember the experience we’ve had with Shop with a Cop,” Phelps said. “I can tell that it does make a difference for them.”
He enjoyed shopping with three young children on Saturday. Phelps said ‘Shop with a Cop’ can show the kids that officers are people too, and that they’re there to help.
“Despite difficult circumstances in life, they’re shopping with a police officer and the big smiles that they typically have,” he said. “They get real excited to go around the store and pick out presents for their family members…it gives them a great amount of joy, and maybe something that they haven’t quite been able to do before.”
JPD Lieutenant Jeremy Weske agreed with that sentiment.
“Without a doubt, this is my favorite event that we do all year,” he said. “You get a chance to interact with kids and make their day, make their Christmas.”
A variety of law enforcement agencies participate outside of APOA and JPD. Over 30 officers from different agencies volunteered this year. For every officer who offers their time, another family receives the blessing of Christmas presents.
Many would say the true gift is the time spent with the kids browsing through Fred Meyer on a perfectly snowy Juneau morning, police car sirens lighting up the dim day.
Russell Hutchins, a Transportation Security Officer, said this was his second year participating. He moved to Juneau from Georgia and said the event introduced him to the community. He said sometimes it can be chaotic, with kids insisting their entire family wants dinosaur toys for Christmas. And sometimes it reminds him of his own Christmases growing up.
“When I was a kid myself, my family was kind of in a similar situation. We weren’t well-off or anything. We lived in a mobile home,” he said. “I get it for families struggling. Paycheck to paycheck, trying to live off what they can.”
While it was Hutchins’ second year volunteering, for some, it was their first.
An enforcement officer with the National Marine Fisheries Service, Cam Marshall, said he decided to volunteer this year to reach out and help those in need. He plans to volunteer again next year.
A supervisor with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Robert Marvelle, said that it’s a great chance for him to get back into the field and interact face-to-face with the community. He has been participating in ‘Shop with a Cop’ for about ten years.
“It gives, especially the kids, an idea of who’s out here working in different law enforcement careers and that we’re here as a good thing, not always a bad thing,” he said. “This is a chance to give back and say, hey, we’re friendly.”
