Despite Covid-19, it was a wonderful success!
On Saturday December 5, 2020, 18 agencies representing law enforcement and members of the Air National Guard, 177th Fighter Wing shopped with 84 kids from throughout Atlantic County and Ocean City.
This year’s event was held at the Walmart in Mays Landing from 8 am -1pm. The volunteer officers and airmen arrived at 8:30am ready to spread some Christmas cheer. Due to COVID-19, this year’s Shop with a Cop was very different but no less special. We had to reduce the number of officers present from last year from 150 to 36, practice social distancing and wear our protective masks. Gone was breakfast, police trading cards and the always popular police, ambulance and fire truck parade. This year instead of everyone shopping at the same time, kids and their officers were assigned a shopping time slot and staggered every 30 minutes to limit the number of children present at any given time.
While a lot of the social activities were slashed, the children and families still had a good time and were very appreciative of the officers and the program provided by PAL. As an added bonus, Mrs. Claus was on hand for some distant greetings and holiday cheer.
“We had a lot of hard decisions to make due to COVID-19 but we are very happy we decided to still put on the event. The event ran flawlessly due to the advance work of the EHTPAL staff, Michelle Riordan and Lisa Souder, volunteers, Tammy Naylor and Denise Tavarez and the fantastic support of Mike Maulone and Christy Higgins from the Mays Landing Walmart. Even though we needed to cut back on a lot of the activities due to Covid we thought it was extremely important that we still hold the event. This year, more than ever, we felt it was needed by everyone- the kids, the officers and us. It’s just been a challenging year and we all needed some holiday cheer. We hope everything is back to normal by next year” said Hector Tavarez, EHTPAL Executive Director.
Thank you to all of the police officers, airmen, volunteers and donors for making this day a special event. Special thanks go to Walmart Mays Landing staff and management, OceanFirst Foundation, CDW, Chick-fil-A, Vince Polistina and Associates and all of our generous sponsors.
About Egg Harbor Township Police Activities League (AKA) Police Activities League of Atlantic County: An Award-winning youth organization with services for infants to 18 years old including preschool, before and after care, summer camp, S.T.E.M. workshops, motorcycle and ATV trails, laser tag and world caliber robotics teams. Go to EHTPAL.org for more info.
