Shop with a Cop is a time-honored tradition among police departments across the Castle Country area, but with the tough economic times the U.S. finds itself in, funding can be hard to come by for a charity effort like this. But this has not deterred the police departments of Carbon County, spearheaded by Sergeant Kelly Maynes and the Price City Police Department. Sgt. Maynes joined Castle Country Radio to discuss the program, its purpose and how to get involved.

“Shop With A Cop is a great thing,” opened Maynes,” it’s a program where we’re able through the funds that we’re able to receive through donations and grant funding, to take some selected kids and selected families to hopefully have something over the holiday season that they might not have otherwise.”

Sgt. Maynes then explained how families are selected for this program,” typically the kids that we try to select are the kids that would be in a position where their family maybe couldn’t do anything for the Christmas season for whatever reason. Most of the time, the kids that are selected are selected by recommendations from our officers.” he continued,” They’re going out on calls and coming across people who they’ll come in and let me know, ‘Hey, these are kids that definitely could use this program this year.’ We try not to select kids that have already participated in it or are participating in other programs such as Angel Tree through the United Way or Sub for Santa or those programs. We want to make sure everybody gets a chance.”

In addition to the officer nominations, the public can also nominate children and families for the program,” So this year we created a Google form. It has been posted on the Price City Police Department webpage and several of the agencies in our area have shared that as well.” Explained the sergeant,” It’s a very simple form. You just have to go in and it asks for some basic information, parents’ info, an address, a good contact phone number, and then the reason why they think they would be a good fit for the program.”

The form can be found here.

Moving on to the topic of donations, the program is searching for community help in providing a merry Christmas for the selected children,” we take donations through the Price City Utilities Office specific for ‘Shop with a Cop’, or they can come to the Price City Police Department and make a donation that way … And 100% of that goes back to these kids that get selected. All of the funds that come in we allocate that out to all the agencies that are involved. And those agencies are responsible for selecting kids within their jurisdictions and their communities.”

Organizations participating in the ‘Shop with a Cop’ program include the Price City Police, the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office, Helper City Police, Wellington City Police, East Carbon City Police, the Highway Patrol, Adult Probation and Parole and Utah State University Eastern’s Police Department.

Jokingly, Sgt. Maynes added that with the ‘Shop with a Cop’ event being held on Dec. 21, it might not be the best day to try and do some last-minute holiday shopping at Walmart.

‘Shop with a Cop’ is scheduled to take place on Saturday, Dec. 21, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. To nominate a child or to stay up to date with the Price City Police Department, you can visit their website here.

*Photo Courtesy of the Price City Police Department