More than 50 Long Beach children received a special holiday season opportunity on Saturday morning, as the 15th annual Shop With A Cop event was held in the downtown City Place shopping center and the youth were each given a $75 gift card to spend on school clothes and supplies at Walmart.

The lbpost.com was a proud sponsor of the event, which was organized by the Long Beach Junior Chamber, in association with the Long Beach Police Foundation and the Boys and Girls Club of Long Beach. Walmart served as the event’s title sponsor.

Local school-aged children were selected by their local Boys & Girls Club to participate in the event, where each child was partnered with an officer in the Long Beach Police Department to assist in their shopping.

Among the officers were Deputy Chiefs Robert Luna and William Blair, and Commander Jorge Cisneros.

The event helped familiarize the youth with police officers in the efforts of building stronger community relations. The officers took their day off to help children find new school clothes, and on more than one occasion used their own money to cover expenses that exceeded the $75 gift cards.

For some of the children participating, Saturday’s event was their only chance to buy new clothes in this entire year.

The children also received a free breakfast at nearby Hometown Buffet, and participated in arts and crafts activities – having fun with temporary tattoos and “Thank you” cards for the officers, Hometown Buffet and Walmart.

The experience seemed to have a profound effect on many of the children. One young girl said she now aspires to be a police officer, while another said she had never been able to shop at Walmart before. They were all in extremely high spirits and thanked volunteers over and over for their help. The pride and joy in one 8-year old girl’s face as she emerged from the dressing room in a new dress was priceless.

It was a truly rewarding experience for all involved, and we hope you’ll consider participating in next year’s event.

Contact communications@lbjuniorchamber.org for more information about upcoming events.

All photos by Nikol Anderson