By T. Scott Boatright
No, that wasn’t the bust of a large group of shoplifters or some other sort of massive call for police presence at the Ruston Walmart.
Instead it was a showing of the gift of love from parish law enforcement providers and the Walmart corporation to help area children-in-need celebrate Christmas.
For the first time since the COVID pandemic, the “Shop with a Cop” event returned to the Ruston Walmart Supercenter, providing more than 60 area children with a bigger and brighter Christmas.
More than 30 law enforcement officers helped a pre-event confirmed 61 children (70 were invited, so more could have shown up) spend up to $100 each to fill a Walmart buggy with whatever their hearts desired.
The Junior Auxiliary of Ruston gathered the names of local children in need from all of the schools in Lincoln Parish to come up with the list of youth invited to participate.
Lincoln Parish Sheriff Stephen Williams was one of those law enforcement officers who made multiple trips throughout the store shopping with children.
“I’ve done this a couple of times over the years and it’s always fulfilling to brighten somebody’s day and especially a kid’s day,” Williams said. “The (Lincoln Parish Sheriff’s) Department is always looking for ways to give back. And as you can see by how many deputies are here, there’s a pretty good buy-in for the department.”
But it wasn’t only LPSO personnel that made up the small army of law enforcement elves gathered at Walmart Tuesday night.
Officers from the Ruston Police Department, Choudrant Police Department, Dubach Police Department, Grambling State University Police Department and the Louisiana Tech University Police Department all participated.
“There’s multiple agencies here,” Williams said. “We work together a lot in obvious times, but this kind of thing is the best reason we could have to work together, trying to create a good Christmas for children from our parish in need of this kind of thing. It’s certainly worth the time.”
LPSO Deputy Iris Winston, head of the LPSO’s Community Services Division, said the turnout shows how worthwhile the “Shop with a Cop” program is.
“Maybe it’s because it’s the first one we’ve done since COVID that the turnout is so good, but we’re very pleased with it,” Winston said.
Leia Frazier, Community Involvement Coordinator and Vision Center Manager for the Ruston Walmart Supercenter, said the success was based on a partnership with the LPSO, which spearheaded the law enforcement part of the event, and the Walmart Corporation.
“We’ve been doing this for about 13 years,” Leia Frazier said. “We didn’t do it during COVID and there were some years where we just didn’t have the funds to do it. But here at Walmart, we have community grant money that we divvy out, so this is something that we support and help with. We set aside so much in community grant money to give to this kind of program.
“We also partnered together (with the LPSO) for a pulled-pork sandwich plate sale in October (that helped raise funds), and we also received a lot of donations that day. So that played a big role in our being able to do this to this extent this year. So, the money came in from a lot of different ways. But it’s all for a good cause, doing this for the kids and trying to give back to the community.”
RPD Public Information Officer Chad Hamlin said it’s a win-win situation for both the participating law enforcement officials and the children the “Shop With A Cop” program benefits.
“This is probably the best part of the job right here,” Hamlin said. “It really is. It’s the best thing we do. I like to tell people that these are our future police officers, firefighters and future citizens period.
“So, if they have a good rapport with us and realize that we just don’t always take people to jail and do only what they see as the bad things we have to do, it starts that positive relationship early on. I remember being allowed to kind of play in a police car as a kid and not being afraid of the police. When they see us in this perspective, it changes that perception we have sometimes as officers.”
LPSO Major Landon Hunt was another officer volunteering time to do what he called simply the right thing to do.
“Just the opportunity for us to spend this time and show them how much we care about them, it’s wonderful,” Hunt said. “For us just to be able to show that we love them, that makes it all worthwhile and that’s why we’re here.”
LPSO Deputy Edward Faile spends much of his time on duty serving as a Student Resource Officer (SRO) at Cypress Springs Elementary School, but he admitted there was something special about his job being able to participate in the “Shop With A Cop” program.
“I love the kiddos,” Faile said. “And to be able to help kids who just aren’t that fortunate and don’t have a lot — it does give you a special feeling being able to help them.”
