Crime & Safety
Urbandale Children 'Shop With a Cop'
The Urbandale Police Department took 18 children shopping for Christmas gifts at the Super Target Thursday evening. The officers help the children pick out their gifts, pay for them and wrap them.
Jazmyne Smith, 11, of Urbandale always gets lost in Target. This year, she had no trouble finding Christmas gifts for her sisters when she had Officer Randy Leventhal by her side.
“We didn’t get lost,” Leventhal said. “We found everything we needed.”
With help from various community organizations, the was able to help 18 needy children by taking them shopping for Christmas presents Thursday, Dec. 22. Officers carted the children around for the second annual Shop with a Cop program.
“We had such a fun time doing it last year,” said Police spokesman Randy Peterson. “It’s just another way of getting out there in the community and giving back.”
The program allows officers to personally assist a child in picking out gifts for their families, paying for them and wrapping them. Financially, it is supported by the Urbandale Police and Protective Benevolent Association, Target, local businesses and private donations from the officers. The names of the lucky children were provided by the
Trevor Brittain, 7, of Urbandale carefully picked out presents with Officer Nick Gilchrist. He used the opportunity to get gifts for his brothers, and made sure to get gifts he knew he would like to receive, like Nerf guns.
“It just made me want to cry that he was thinking of others,” said his mother Heidi Brittain of Urbandale. “That’s so my son.”
She was concerned at first to be getting a call from an officer when Peterson called to invite Trevor along.
“To know the police are here supporting the kids and community is so great,” Brittain said.
Trevor even wanted to wrap the gifts himself, just not in the Justin Beiber wrapping paper.
Many of the children, like Nailah Hall, 9, of Urbandale, came equipped with a very specific list. Nailah knew her cousin wanted a Wii game, and that was the present she wanted to wrap first with Officer Peterson.
Smith said with Leventhal guiding her, she was proud to buy and wrap a game for her sister, which she knows she’s been wanting for a long time.
“I felt protected,” said Smith of shopping with the officer.