Police organization gears up for Christmas programs
Published: November 17, 2006
Police organization gears up for Christmas programs
A few years back, the father of two young boys died around Thanksgiving.
“What kind of a Christmas is that?” asked Bismarck Police Officer John Brocker, who is also the president of the Missouri Valley Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police.
The boys were nominated by teachers to be part of the Fraternal Order of Police’s annual Shop With a Cop event.
Each year, members of the FOP try to make Christmas a little brighter for children for whom Christmas looks a little bleak, with their Shop With a Cop and Christmas in the Hospital programs. [The Christmas House: How One Man’s Dream Changed the Way We Celebrate Christmas]
Brocker said the FOP has sent nomination packets to schools in Bismarck, Mandan and the outlying area. Teachers can nominate students whom they feel may benefit from being taken shopping by police officers.
An FOP committee reads the nominations and determines which kids the cops will take shopping, and an average of more than 100 kids are taken shopping each year, Brocker said.
Financial reasons are not the only causes to bring children into the program, Brocker said.
“It’s not just about financial problems,” he said. “We’ve taken kids where both parents are locked up in prison.”
If teachers include more information on a nomination form about children’s lives, the committee gets a better idea about how much each child could benefit from the experience, Brocker said.
FOP members will take the selected children shopping at Wal-Mart, Brocker said. The FOP members wear Missouri Valley Lodge T-shirts, and the kids are given green T-shirts that say, “I shopped with a cop,” he said.
“You’ve not seen anything until you see this sea of green running through Wal-Mart,” he said.
While Shop With a Cop is a national FOP program, Christmas in the Hospital is unique to the Missouri Valley Lodge, Brocker said.
“How cruddy is it to be stuck in the hospital at Christmastime?” he asked.
Members find out how many pediatric patients are in Medcenter One and St. Alexius on Christmas morning; then they run out and shop for the kids, Brocker said.
Santa Claus and his elves deliver the presents to the hospitals, and the children get their photographs taken with Santa, he said.
Last year, the FOP also began taking presents to patients in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Brocker said. He said the FOP again plans to bring Christmas ornaments and stuffed animals to the babies.
He said local businesses have received letters asking for donations to support the programs. Area businesses have been very generous over the years, Brocker said.
He said Wal-Mart is the national sponsor for the Fraternal Order of Police’s Shop With a Cop program.
On the local level, Harlow’s provides a bus for the FOP to transport kids, McDonald’s provides lunch, and Dakota Skies Bingo donates half of what it takes in on certain nights to the program, Brocker said.
“Dakota Skies Bingo has been nothing short of spectacular,” Brocker said.
Donations are pooled for both Shop With a Cop and Christmas in the Hospital, Brocker said.
Recalling one girl with curly blonde hair who so enjoyed her experience shopping with a cop that she made up her own Christmas song about it while she roamed Wal-Mart, Brocker said the experience is fulfilling for officers as well as children.
“That kind of thing really warms you,”he said.
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