By VERNON ROBISON
The Progress
More than a dozen members of the Kokopelli ATV Club gathered at the Mesquite Police Department headquarters on Friday afternoon, Dec. 10 to donate the proceeds of their most recent club fundraiser. The group presented a check for $2,000 to help the MPD with their Shop with a Cop program which takes place this week.
Shop with a Cop is an annual event where members of law enforcement take local school children on a Christmas shopping experience at area stores. Police officers pick up the kids at their school in the morning and take them shopping for presents for themselves and their families. The recipient kids are specifically selected by the schools as needing a little extra help.
“We have a lot of kids in our community who are in that category,” said MPD Lieutenant Chris Rowley who accepted the check on Friday. “As police, we don’t always have the opportunity to reach out to them, build relationships and make friends with them. This is an opportunity every year to make a difference with those kids.”
Rowley said that this year’s Shop with a Cop event was expected to take about 60 kids on shopping trips with local law enforcement officers.
“We appreciate your support in this cause,” Rowley told the club members in attendance.
The idea for the fundraiser came from Kokopelli Club member Trudy Manitz. With a granddaughter of her own in the local schools, Manitz had heard about the program through her involvement at the school.
“It seemed like a great program for us to get behind,” Manitz said. “So I presented it to the club and they liked the idea.”
The Shop with a Cop program was accepted by the 200+ member club as one of two big fundraisers held each year, said Club President Dominic Oliveto.
“We want to give back to the community,” Oliveto said. “But to focus our efforts, we decided to focus on just two big fundraisers each year, The first one is our big drive for the local food pantry, which we did a few months ago; and it was a big success. The other one is this one.”
Oliveto added that the club saw Shop with a Cop as an outstanding cause to get behind. “In this day and age, with all the negative publicity about police that is out there, this is something that brings positive feelings about law enforcement for kids and the community,” he said. “Kids need to see that the police are not their enemies but their friends. This program does that.”
