Kilo Paw is small for his age — thinner and shorter than his peers. A few tufts of black hair stick up on the back of his head. Huge, deep-brown eyes absorb the chaos around him as almost a hundred children, accompanied by a hundred police officers, raced around Walmart Saturday morning for Ingham County’s fifth annual Shop with a Cop.
Nine-year-old Kilo was among the dozens of children who were given $100 to buy Christmas presents for themselves and their families through the program. Kilo was shy during breakfast with the officers and children, and he hesitated before climbing into the front seat of the cop car that would take him to Walmart. A refugee from Burma, Kilo came from a culture where the police were the enemy, a force to avoid.
But sometime between entering the car with Lansing police Officer Wendy Prince and arriving at Walmart, Kilo began to feel more comfortable. By the time they began the shopping spree, he was talking nonstop, wanting everything in the store. At the end of the day, Kilo treated Prince as a good friend, running around and playing tag with her.
Although Kilo was the one who left with a shopping cart full of wrapped presents, Prince had gotten her own gift — a chance to play a role many officers feel they don’t get to enough.
“We don’t get to do a whole lot of things that make you feel good,” Prince said. “When you go out and make a difference in one person’s life … and make them feel good and happy, that’s what makes your day —it makes your job.”
Beginnings
Lansing police Officer Philip Bailey remembers when he and two other officers decided to take multiple programs involving children going shopping with officers and combine them into one in order to increase funding and participation.
The first Shop with a Cop had 19 officers and 23 kids with $50 each. Now, five years later, Bailey has reached his goal of 100 officers and 100 kids with $100 each.
Police officers, as well as teachers, refer children from impoverished families for the program, East Lansing police Officer Candace Ivey said.
“They might not have a Christmas at all,” Ivey said. “(They might) not get gifts for Christmas.”
But Christmas or not, the kids don’t buy solely for themselves. There are baby dolls for sisters and necklaces for mothers. One 5-year-old girl actually had to be reminded by her officer that she could buy a gift for herself.
“One of the by-products we have been seeing is a little better relationship with the community, especially the young people,” Bailey said. “We get feedback from kids who have shopped with an officer (who) said they were going to get in trouble with peers and decided not to because of their experience (with Shop with a Cop.)”
Shopping with cops
It all began with a slip of paper Michelle Ayers was handed by her daughter, Stephanie Ayers, when she arrived home from school.
“She gave me a paper saying she was invited to be in Shop with a Cop,” Ayers said. “I didn’t know what it was until I learned about it. I was just so overwhelmed.”
At 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning, Stephanie and about 100 other children were dropped off at Plymouth Congregational Church, 2001 E. Grand River Ave., in Lansing, for breakfast and to be paired with a law enforcement worker from police deparments in the area.
From the church, officers and children got into cop cars, turned on the lights and sirens and caravaned down Wood Road, en route to Walmart. After the children selected and paid for their items, the carts were taken to the back of the store where 50 to 75 volunteers, many who work in law enforcement, wrapped and labeled the presents while the children eat lunch and had their photo taken with Santa and Mrs. Claus.
At the end of the day, parents came to collect their children from the store. Waiting for Kilo were Gary and Trudy Smith, his “grandparents.”
The couple have assisted Kilo and his family with adapting to American life since they came from Burma three years ago. They were the ones who read Kilo’s invitation to Shop with a Cop to his mother, who is not fluent in English. They also were the ones who came to Walmart to take Kilo and his presents home.
“These gifts will probably be the only ones exchanged,” Trudy Smith said. “I don’t think they’ve ever been Christmas shopping. I don’t think they’ve ever had the money.”
Impact
Cami Quick, a third-grade student at Lansing’s Gier Park Elementary School, didn’t have the best image of the police. Her family had several negative experiences with police officers.
In the course of a single morning, East Lansing police Officer Jim Phelps changed that. Somewhere between riding in a cop car and standing in line to see Santa Claus, Cami decided police officers weren’t so bad after all.
“I just thought they were mean,” Cami said. “But now I think they’re nice people.”
For Phelps, the arrests and tickets aren’t the reason he became an officer, and they fill only a fraction of his roles as an officer.
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“A lot of people just see officers pulling people over on the side of the road,” Phelps said. “That’s just one-tenth of our job. I work in a detective bureau, and I deal with families all the time. We’re counselors some days, law enforcement officers some days and paperwork other days.”
From all the hats an officer wears, Prince said making a tangible, positive impact in the community was one of the best.
“We don’t get to do fun, happy things all the time, so to see everyone friendly and working together, it was heartwarming,” Prince said. “I don’t even know how important it was for Kilo, just being able to get something for himself and get something for his mother. He’s probably never done that before.”
But as Trudy Smith saw Kilo brimming with excitement as he and Prince said goodbye, she knew what impact the event had on the child.
“I think this was a life-changing experience for him,” Trudy Smith said. “I really do.”
Discussion
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