Cops Take Over Walmart, Provide Annual Shopping Spree for Needy Families

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Police cars lined the front of Walmart on Harrison Road Monday night.

There were no crimes going on.  They were there for “Shop with a Cop.”  Every year, the Fraternal Order of Police teams up with local families who might be without during Christmas.

“We’ve probably got 80-100 kids in here,” says Lt. Danny Thigpen, president of the FOP.  “They’re allowed to spend $80 or over, but if they go over $80, or if they go over $100, nobody is going to make them put back anything. We want to make sure they feel at home so they can come in and get what they want.”

Not only is it a shopping spree for the kids but a chance to hang out with real life heroes.

“When you do something good, you can go home and go to sleep and know you did something good,” Thigpen says.  “Not only that, when you help somebody that you know really, really needs help, it makes you feel good to go home and say, ‘I did help them. We all helped do what we needed to do.'”

Little girls like six-year-old Alyssa might not have any presents if it weren’t for this event.

“(I) barely make ends meet as is with the economy the way it is,” says Alyssa’s mom, Amanda.  “It’s a blessing.  I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

The FOP gives back to the community year-round.  The organization hosts another shopping spree during the summer when kids are going back to school, and each Thanksgiving, they donate hundreds of turkeys to families in need.