{"id":15933,"date":"2016-12-12T11:46:11","date_gmt":"2016-12-12T16:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=15933"},"modified":"2016-12-12T11:46:11","modified_gmt":"2016-12-12T16:46:11","slug":"coatesvilles-shop-with-a-cop-brightens-holidays-for-local-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=15933","title":{"rendered":"Coatesville’s Shop with a Cop brightens holidays for local kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

Community, local law enforcement, volunteers and organizations come\u00a0together for 14th year<\/em><\/h2>\n

By Lauren Parker- Gill,<\/strong>\u00a0News Editor, The Times<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"

McGruff the Crime Dog was on hand to greet the officers and children participating in the 14th annual Shop with a Cop Saturday morning at the Parkesburg Wal-Mart.<\/p><\/div>\n

COATESVILLE \u2013 Christmas came early for 78 children in the city Saturday morning, as they were selected to participate in the 14th<\/sup> annual Shop With a Cop event that began with breakfast with Santa at Olivet Church and continued with a full parade procession led by dozens of police officers and two school buses to the Wal-Mart in Parkesburg.<\/p>\n

Officer Tony Sparano of the West Caln Police Department initially started Shop With A Cop 14 years ago when he was with the City of Coatesville Police Department.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve done a great job keeping this program going all these years.\u201d Sparano said of the Coatesville Police Department as he volunteered his time Saturday.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Corporal Paul Antonucci, his wife Jamie and daughter Francesca helped 7-year-old Dougie Jacks shop for his family and treat himself to a few toys as well.<\/p><\/div>\n

Children were either nominated by their elementary school in the Coatesville Area School district, by a youth serving organization within the city or by members of city council.<\/p>\n

Each child had $125 to shop with, thanks to fundraising, donations and a 10% discount provided by Wal-Mart. Officers who volunteered their time Saturday, were each assigned a child to help him or her shop for themselves, family or friends.<\/p>\n

Corporal Paul Antonucci, along with his wife Jamie and their daughter 4-year-old daughter Francesca, helped Dougie Jacks, who now wants to be a police officer when he grows up, shop for gifts for his family.<\/p>\n

As they approached the registers, Jacks was proud to show off the earrings he chose for his mom, along with a smart watch, an Air Hog helicopter and some Ghostbusters and Ninja Turtle toys.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is like an early merry Christmas for me.\u201d Jacks said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe three months of planning and five hours of controlled chaos is worth it when you see the incredible interaction between the youth and the officers,\u201d said Coatesville Sergeant Rodger Ollis. \u201cI\u2019m hopeful that the short period of time on Saturday creates everlasting constructive relationships between law enforcement and those touched by the program.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

The ‘elves’ which consisted of officers families and many other volunteers were busy wrapping presents that were carefully chosen by the children who participated.<\/p><\/div>\n

All items that were purchased Saturday were then taken into the greenhouse part of the store, where volunteer ‘elves’ were waiting to wrap the presents, label them and load them into an awaiting truck. The gifts were then all transported back to Olivet Church and distributed to the children to take home.<\/p>\n

The City of Coatesville Police Department thanks their contributors:<\/p>\n

Witmer Public Safety Group<\/p>\n

Witmer Public Dafety employees<\/p>\n

Krapf Busing<\/p>\n

Parkesburg Wal-Mart<\/p>\n

Hope Beyond Borders<\/p>\n

Coatesville Kids to College<\/p>\n

Coatesville Police Union<\/p>\n

West End Fire Company<\/p>\n

We Kare @kw Exton<\/p>\n

Fuel City Caf\u00e9<\/p>\n

Egan Family<\/p>\n

3CTV Live<\/p>\n

They\u2019d also like to thank the following police departments:<\/p>\n

City of Coatesville Police Dept.<\/p>\n

Valley Township Police Dept.<\/p>\n

Caln Township Police Dept.<\/p>\n

West Caln Township Police Dept.<\/p>\n

West Brandywine Police Dept.<\/p>\n

East Fallowfield Police Dept.<\/p>\n

Sadsbury Police Dept.<\/p>\n

PA State Police<\/p>\n

Sheriff\u2019s office<\/p>\n

And volunteer organizations:<\/p>\n

Lily of the Valley Masons<\/p>\n

Coatesville City Council<\/p>\n

Coatesville Youth Initiative<\/p>\n

Hope Beyond Borders<\/p>\n

Coatesville Kids to College<\/p>\n

Chester County Safe Kids<\/p>\n

Chester County Highway Safety<\/p>\n

Teachers from the Coatesville Area School District<\/p>\n

Witmer Public Safety Group<\/p>\n

New Life in Christ Fellowship Church<\/p>\n

Members of the Coatesville community<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Community, local law enforcement, volunteers and organizations come\u00a0together for 14th year By Lauren Parker- Gill,\u00a0News Editor, The Times COATESVILLE \u2013 Christmas came early for 78 children in the city Saturday morning, as they were selected to participate in the 14th annual Shop With a Cop event that began with breakfast with Santa at Olivet Church […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15934,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[667,3007,3912,4440,1204,4523],"class_list":["post-15933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-city-of-coatesville","tag-city-of-coatesville-police-department","tag-featured","tag-holidays","tag-shop-with-a-cop","tag-wal-mart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15933"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15935,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15933\/revisions\/15935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}