By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News

The giving spirit is making its way into the Castle Country as the holidays rapidly approach. One such event looking to unite the community through charity is Carbon County’s annual ‘Shop With a Cop’ event, with the 2025 rendition set for Dec. 20.

Sgt. Kelly Maynes with the Price City Police Department joined the KOAL newsroom to discuss the event and its wide-reaching impact on the community. 

“‘Shop With a Cop’ is a program that we’ve been doing for probably the last 30 years or so in our area. It’s a program where, through community donations and grant funding, we’re able to serve those kids in our community whose families might be struggling who might not have the option or the opportunity to have something during the holiday season,” explained Maynes of the event.

He continued,” This is a program through law enforcement, where we’re able to put this program together and select some kids to go do this. We have tried to make it an event so it’s something that they remember and it’s something special and then they get to go spend some money and have a good Christmas.”

Spearheaded by the Price City Police Department, the event unites law enforcement agencies across Carbon County for a common cause: “The Carbon County Sheriff’s Office, Helper police, Wellington police, East Carbon police, the Utah Highway Patrol, Utah State University Eastern’s police department and Adult Probation and Parole are all involved. Each agency is responsible for selecting kids from their community to go. Once we get the funding together through Price City, we allocate it out to the agencies, depending on the size of the agency, and then we have a lot of other fun stuff we do that day to make it a huge event for these kids. I won’t kid, it’s a huge event for the officers too. They have those big smiles as well.”

As with any public program, donations play a significant role in ‘Shop With a Cop’. Maynes discussed how the public can get involved through monetary contributions: “The best way that they can make donations is either through the Price City Police Department or through the Price City Utilities Office at city hall. If they go into the utilities office, they just need to make sure that they let them know it’s a donation for ‘Shop With a Cop’ and they’ll put it in that way. Everything we get from grants and donations goes to the program; it doesn’t go for anything else. All of this money goes to give to these kids to spend.”

Maynes also took the time to thank individuals and businesses within the community who have played a major role in the event. “Walmart is a big supporter of this. They give us quite a donation and that donation comes from our local Walmart. Donations also come through the Utah Civilian Police Association. They’re based out of Salt Lake City and are a nonprofit organization that provides grant funding to agencies all throughout the state of Utah for doing this. We also couldn’t do this without USU Eastern’s Dining Services letting us use their building. They’re actually sponsoring it this year to allow us access to the building to do that, along with McDonald’s. The management and the owners of our local McDonald’s have agreed to donate the breakfast once again.”

He continued,” Price City does a lot to help as well by giving us the options on how we can get this all set up. This year, we had an individual, Josh Sacco, who did a fundraiser softball game through USARA and through Operation Recovery between a bunch of individuals and a bunch of officers.”

Maynes also took the time to speak on the giving spirit felt locally,” I’ve always been amazed by how our community steps up for others in our community. Whether there’s a disaster, whether it be something bad happening or when it comes to this program with ‘Shop With a Cop’, it is just amazing to me how much our community steps up to help each other.”

Closing our conversation, Maynes stated,” We’re heading into the holiday season. Everybody, be safe. Enjoy the holidays, drive safely, and please be aware that school is in full force. Watch your speed in the morning and in the afternoon, and watch for those kids moving around in the crosswalks.”

Carbon County’s ‘Shop With a Cop’ is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 20. Submissions for the event are currently open and are available through the following link.