ABOVE: Fairmont Police Officers Lily Paine and Dustin Schwebke talk while presents are wrapped Sunday afternoon at Walmart during the annual Shop with a Cop event. Ten children took part in this year’s event.

FAIRMONT– Walmart in Fairmont was full of police officers on Sunday afternoon, not to respond to a bad situation though, but to help make Christmas a little brighter for 10 local families.

As it is now, the Fairmont Police Department has been doing Shop with a Cop since 2017.

Community Outreach Sergeant Jaime Bleess explained how this year’s event went.

“Each kid gets to spend $200 on their family and each family gets to spend $100 on groceries or whatever else they need,” Bleess said.

The children could get presents for their entire family, including themselves. Bless said the kids are told to bring a list ahead of time and that most of them used the Walmart app to find their stuff and knew what aisles the items were down.

“The kids were pretty organized and shopped with the officers and worked together to manage their budget,” he said.

In order to fund the shopping event, Walmart gave $2,000 and the Uptown Kiwanis and Lions Club gave donations, as well as some individual donors.

“It’s supported by the community really well,” Bleess said.

Captain Mike Beletti echoed that the community is instrumental in the success of the program.

“It wouldn’t be possible without the community support,” Beletti said.

As for selecting the families, Bless said, “This year, we partnered with the school. Officer (Lily) Paine, the School Resource Officer, put the word out to local schools and the schools gave some names and officer Paine was in charge of picking the families. She contacted them all to make sure they could be here.”

He added that every year the attendance is really good, which shows that the need is there.

While the officers shopped with the kids, their family members and other department members worked on wrapping up all of the gifts. Then the officers brought the carts out to each family’s car and loaded up their trunks with Christmas presents.

Bleess said he thinks this was the best attendance department-wise they’ve ever had.

“The entire police department was either here or covering the streets to support the program,” he said.

Beletti confirmed that there were 16 staff members on site on Sunday. He said this lead a few community members who happened to be shopping at Walmart to ask some questions.

“When we tell them what’s happening, they’re overjoyed to see us there,” Beletti said.

He said that aside from Fairmont Night Out, Shop with a Cop has the best participation and is something that the officers really look forward to.

Bless noted that it was the first Shop with a Cop experience for their new officers, of which there are several this year.

“It’s exciting for me to see a program we’ve been doing for some many years have a new energy because they’re experiencing it for the first time,” Bleess said.

Shop with a Cop is something that the department will continue to do because the benefits of it are many.

“I think this is another way that we can give back to our community. It’s important that we get out there and help families in need and build that positivity in the community,” Beletti said.