State Center PD’s ‘Shop with a Cop’ returns for second year
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STATE CENTER -- The State Center Police Department is pleased to announce the Shop with a Cop program has returned for a second year to the West Marshall community.
Shop with a Cop is a program which selects school age students with police officers for the purpose of assisting those families who could use a boost during the holiday season for any number of reasons or for the purpose of building relationships with school age students who often times have only had negative interactions with law enforcement because of circumstances outside his/her control.
In years past the State Center Police Department has assisted the Marshalltown Police Department with their Shop with a Cop program. In 2022, officers of the State Center Police Department formed the State Center Peace Officers Association (SCPOA) as a mechanism to give back to the community and help those in need. The State Center Peace Officers Association is comprised of reserve peace officers, part-time officers and full-time officers of the State Center Police Department.
In 2022, the State Center Police Department also took over the Rose Festival Car Show as both a way to support the community festival and a method to raise money for programs like Shop with a Cop. The proceeds of the car show along with our annual donation drive provide the funds necessary to facilitate the Shop with a Cop program.
Serving as the hub for the West Marshall Community Schools, the program is open to any West Marshall student. Students selected from the program live in rural Western Marshall County as well as Clemons, St. Anthony, Rhodes, and Melbourne.
While State Center has a limited number of businesses to serve this program, Chief Jon Thomas commented that the SCPOA is pleased to be able to spend approximately $2,000 with local State Center businesses as part of the program.
This year over a dozen families were served by this program with 29 individual students participating. For many of our officers, this is one of their favorite days of the year and officers participating in the program donate their time while shopping with their students.
The State Center Police Department and SCPOA wish to thank all those who made this event possible.
"We feel like we get the credit for the event but in reality, we are simply the delivery person, the community is the real champion here and as long as they continue to support the program, we will continue to deliver," Thomas said.